SWORDHAVEN: IRON CONSPIRACY Review

Swordhaven is the third RPG release from AtomTeam, creators of the excellent ATOM RPG, and Trudograd, its standalone expansion. Those of you who have played at least one of these games will know more or less what to expect from Swordhaven, as it is a game built on the same game engine and with a similar design, writing, and gameplay philosophy. The notable difference here, of course, is that while ATOM and Trudograd are clear tributes to the original Fallout games, Swordhaven draws inspiration from the other giant of 90s RPGs, Baldur's Gate, and takes place in a traditional, low-fantasy setting. With some caveats, of course, which I may delve into further down the line.

The story's beginning is quite basic and nostalgically cliché. The character we control is on a ship bound for Nova Drakonia, a kind of borderlands on the edge of the mighty Kudonian Empire. However, the ship encounters severe weather shortly before reaching its destination, resulting in serious damage and casualties among the passengers. A dying fellow passenger gives us a medallion, with clear instructions to deliver it to his contact in the city of Swordhaven. According to him, this act will have decisive consequences for the survival of the Empire, and perhaps even THE WORLD.

Due to the ship's poor condition, its captain decides to disembark all passengers by boat to the nearest beach... and that's how our adventure begins. The strange medallion is the game's "MacGuffin", the "magical object" that essentially starts the plot and sets us on the road to the big city. Despite the urgent pleas of our fellow traveler, of course, there is no time limit for completing the main quest, so we can wander wherever the wind takes us.

A lot of good work has been done in terms of world-building and establishing the basic lore in this new setting. Distinct social and cultural groups, deities, guilds, state entities, cities and villages, all facing different challenges. There is a distinct BaldursGate-y feel to it due to the existence of some notorious iron mines, which play a central role in the plot (hence the "Iron Conspiracy" in the title). There's also the essence of conflict between the old and the new, with the "barbarian" tribes that have always inhabited this corner of the world facing marginalization, even open hostility, from the "civilized" Imperial subjects. I think that the in-game multiculturalism is implemented in a way that is quite apt and logical within the context of the world, and better than, for example, Pillars of Eternity 2, where members of different tribes would randomly throw in words from their native dialect during dialogues, with the result seeming completely contrived.

In terms of gameplay, the first impressive feature in Swordhaven is that the background we choose (among 5 available) for our main character during character creation starts to influence our travels from the very beginning. This is mainly because, depending on the background we choose, a different companion NPC will choose to accompany us at the starting area. This is explained based on in-game RP, of course – if we play with the Bandit background, then the thief traveling with us on the starting beach will be clearly more willing to accompany us than if we behave as a Noble or Merchant, for example. But beyond the companion, the background seems to influence several unique dialogue options and how several NPCs react to our character, from the beginning to the end of the game.

In general, I would say that the gameplay is quite straightforward for an AtomTeam RPG, adapted, as I mentioned earlier, to the fantasy setting. We earn XP by questing, fighting, or learning information in dialogues, we level up our characters, and when leveling up, we distribute skill points among 15 different skills related to combat with various weapons, behavior during dialogues, or survival. Following the logic of a clickbait video titled "10 Things You Need to Know Before Playing Swordhaven" or something like that, I must point out that during dialogues or encounters on the world map, ONLY the main character's skills are counted, NOT those of the companions. Therefore, it is crucial to upgrade a speech skill or the Outdoorsman skill on the main character rather than on the companions, where it will clearly see more limited use.

Beyond the setting, another notable difference between Swordhaven and other AtomTeam games is the combined support for and ability to switch between turn-based and pseudo-real-time combat (essentially real-time-with-pause), a dual feature that seems to be quite fashionable lately (as in Obsidian's recent announcement that the first Pillars of Eternity will receive a turn-based update).

I played for a while switching between the two combat systems, and both seem quite functional. Perhaps even a temporary switch to RTwP is appropriate in scenes with lots of trash mobs for the sake of combat speed (and in Swordhaven, battles are much more numerous and frequent than I remember happening in ATOM, for example). But the truth is that for the vast majority of my time playing the game, I played exclusively in turn-based mode, as the slower and more thoughtful approach it offers suits my temperament better.

In terms of combat, it is worth mentioning that, especially in the early stages of the game and especially when playing at any difficulty level above Easy, I found them to be considerably more difficult than in the company's previous games. In fact, I must point out the necessity for each character to specialize early on in at least one combat skill as they level up, as the abilities that are progressively unlocked become essential for the party's survival. However, as the game progresses, the difficulty curve leans a little more towards the easy side, with battles (especially against trash mobs) seeming more like a time-consuming chore than a challenge. This does not mean, of course, that there are not some fairly challenging instances and boss fights.

As for Swordhaven's overall writing, I would say that it is on par with ATOM/Trudograd, with its pros and cons. As in previous games, most quests here have multiple different paths to completion depending on our skills and RP (though certainly not all), while during the Main Quest there is a mutually exclusive branching with each path offering completely different quests for a period of time. The dialogues have their ups and downs, mainly because they maintain the style of ATOM/Trudograd with occasional jokes, pop culture references, and modern slang, but while this style may be more suited to the SovietCore aesthetic of the first games, in a fantasy game like Swordhaven it might occasionally strike a somewhat uglier chord. This does not mean that the writing is universally bad or that it offers scenes of unadulterated cringe on the level of, say, Veilguard, but even so, I couldn't help but feel that... something seems slightly off at times.

I also found the available companion NPCs a bit dull, as, apart from the quests related to "hiring" them to our party, they are mainly there to lend a hand in battle, without their personalities shining particularly brightly or having any element that makes them unique and memorable. I would also swear that their dialogues have not yet been 100% implemented and are a work in progress, which fits with the overall vibe of the game, but more on that below.

During my approximately 40 hours of play until the ending (as complete a playthrough as I could manage, on Normal difficulty and playing with the Noble character background) I encountered other minor issues that, while not dealbreakers, did cause some occasional annoyance. For example, too many of the game's indoor maps (especially the dungeons) have very narrow passages guarded by trash mobs, which makes battles quite frustrating, as there is ALWAYS an NPC or mob blocking the path, resulting in a 1v1 duel while everyone else involved is unable to move and simply skips their turn. Another frustrating aspect is the occasional pathfinding glitch, which results in, for example, me clicking to disarm a trap that the party has spotted, but instead of disarming it, the selected character will simply walk on the trap and take damage.

Oh yeah, I didn't go into detail about the "setting caveats" I mentioned in the intro. Basically, besides Baldur's Gate, Swordhaven seems to draw inspiration from another famous RPG series from the 90s... but if I mention it, it might be considered a spoiler. Let's just say that the low-fantasy setting has some extra high touches that peak during the ending chapter, and that may significantly influence the final impression one will form of the game.

However, Swordhaven's most significant flaw at this stage is probably that, although the game has officially left early access and is playable from start to finish, not ALL of its content has been implemented... and it shows. On one hand, there are still quests in the game that can be activated but not completed, either because an NPC related to them has been disabled due to bugs and will return in a future patch, or because a location related to them has not yet been implemented in the game. On the other hand, the broader content declines in terms of quantity after about the half-way mark. Leaving aside the fact that the endgame is essentially like a separate chapter in its own right, it is obvious that the initial areas (roughly the first third of the map) are clearly more complete in terms of quality content than the last third of the map, which consists mainly of fairly extensive but for the most part empty areas that we will only access in order to get to ONE plot-critical location that lies there, before returning to Swordhaven to proceed with the main quest.

In fact, the developers have stated outright that version 1.1, which will be released in the near future (probably in Q1 2026) will introduce, among other things, a new large urban center to the game (also a stretch goal in the game's Kickstarter campaign), which is logically intended to enrich the second half of the game. One might wonder why they didn't wait until this addition was complete before releasing Swordhaven from early access (as well as why they released it literally in the middle of the Christmas Steam Sales), but I guess we're not here to judge their marketing tactics, only the final result.

Nevertheless, I still enjoyed Swordhaven in its current phase. More or less as much as I expected to, given how much I enjoyed ATOM/Trudograd. But it's a shame that the overall experience it offers is not yet 100% of what it could be in terms of content. Leaving aside the... let's say controversial twist that is revealed towards the ending, the ATOM formula translates quite well into a solid fantasy game, not always with 100% success, to be honest, but certainly to a large enough extent to satisfy fans of the company's previous titles and those looking for a nostalgic indie tribute to the atmosphere of the first Baldur's Gate games. But it will probably take one or two meaty updates before I can say with certainty that it will be on par with the company's previous titles in terms of quality and quantity.

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