PORTAL KNIGHTS
Picking up Mojang’s mojo and running with it
Sandboxes are pretty crowded these days. Add freeform creation to the mix and you’ll be tripping over building blocks strewn about by the likes of Dragon Quest Builders, Lego Worlds, and, of course, Minecraft. Yet these games are essentially singleplayer pursuits – and when they have had a multiplayer element added, it generally feels like an afterthought. Portal Knights sparks into life with the addition of other players.
As a solo game, Portal Knights is exactly what you might expect given the company it keeps: very familiar. Its point of difference is that the world you find yourself in has been fractured into floating islands, walled apart from each other and accessible only via portals. Discovering the whys and wherefores behind this strange division of reality involves lots of exploring, mining and, yes, crafting.
The game that sprang to mind while wandering quietly through my own island was No Man’s Sky. There’s lots to see and admire but little to drive you through the game besides your own sense of curiosity.
Add a couple of friends into your game and immediately things perk up. The level 13 area you were putting off visiting because you were only level 4 is now far less demanding with even one other player by your side. The first boss, a bloated, bile-spewing worm, can be taken down alone, but it’s much more fun sharing tactics – and victory – among a small team. It’s during these encounters that Portal Knights’ seemingly generic class system comes into its own.
There are only three classes to choose from: mage, ranger, and warrior. In the aforementioned boss
THE HIGH-LEVEL AREA YOU WERE PUTTING OFF VISITING IS FAR LESS DEMANDING WITH EVEN ONE OTHER PLAYER.
battle, the first two are better off hanging back to heal your party and picking off enemy minions respectively, while the warrior gets in close to hack away at the worm. The enclosed nature of these boss battles means you’ll be running into each other and trying not to panic. In pretty much any other game this would be a failing; here, it’s hilarious, probably intentionally.
If you do enjoy your own company, your co-players can instead stick to their own islands, building and battling away. Give it a couple of hours and then, when you have the time, hop over to pay a visit. You’ll get a real buzz seeing what they’ve created. You can even initiate your own basic bartering system as a way to get hold of rarer loot, since not all islands are abundant with items and raw materials. For once in a quest-builder, playing with friends is the whole point.
VERDICT
A colourful world, a surprisingly subtle battle system and bite-sized island levels. As a multiplayer experience Portal Knights has an unexpectedly long shelf life. Simon Bramble