Covenant.dev isn’t your everyday developer, founded in 2020 in Warsaw, Poland, and this group has some seriously big ambitions. Instead of starting small with simple releases like most development studios, Covenant.dev took the plunge by going all in with the mother of all gambles. This is normally seen as a devastating move because of how high risk it is, though it seems to have worked in their favor. After a lot of teasing and even more time under development, Covenant.dev finally released Gord on 17 August, a dark colony sim with some strategy and RTS mixed in.

The world of Gord starts off in Calanthia with a beautifully drawn cutscene voiced by the King. On a mission to take control of the lands around Calanthia, Lysatia is next on his conquest, but this is no small task. Lysatia might be brimming with gold that the King of Calanthia needs, it also has no shortage of horrifying creatures and darkness around every corner. All this aside, you’ll also have to deal with the remaining savage tribes that inhabit Lysatia, the one you’ll be leading as Steward of the King is The Tribe of The Dawn. Your mission is simple, secure the Golden Route for the King before his army arrives while his emissary, Edwyn, keeps an annoyingly snide eye on your progress.

While Edwyn is an annoying little troll of a man who will drive you to endless frustration around every corner, you’ll also have Boghdan, Elder to The Tribe of The Dawn. He’ll essentially play the role of kindness and maintain a semi calming aspect to your adventure while he guides you through the woods of Lysatia. Edwyn and Boghdan might not always see eye to eye, but you’ll notice that the story of Lysatia goes much deeper than just a simple gold rush.

Your perilous adventure in Gord starts off somewhat simple, even though it’s still not very forgiving while you’re in the tutorial stages. Gord, being a colony sim, you’ll have a fairly detailed top-down view of everything with the usual panning and camera rotation, but the camera rotation is a bit of an issue because of how jarring it can be. It will take a few missions to get the hang of just that, though this one little thing could’ve been mapped or worked out better. After getting a quick feel for the basic panning controls, you’ll have to lead a small group of people to a suitable location to place a gord.

Yes, the namesake is the name of your base. Your gord is your people’s safe haven, where all your resources get delivered and where worship takes place. Unfortunately, it’s also an easy target and somewhat pointless, but more on this later. Your gord and your people are your most important assets in Gord, but mostly your people, because you can rebuild and repair, but repopulating while maintaining some form of economy is nearly impossible. Granted, keeping your gord in one piece and your people alive is easier said than done.

Starting off is rather simple, it always starts with a gord. You’ll need to place and reposition your walls while sticking to the requirements and limitations. this doesn’t really leave much on the creativity front, but you can at least play around with the shape on your gord by moving the corners and entrance to where you want them. After this, you’ll need to get your resource economy up and running. You’ll have to start with basic resources like wood, reeds and food. Wood and Reeds are processed at the Lumbermill and Thatchery, while food is a bit more complicated.

While you need wood and reeds to construct almost anything, food will slowly decline as time passes for your people’s upkeep. This is where having a Forager’s Hut is a must-have building for simple food gathering, though you’ll need to expand your options on food gathering with the Hunter’s Den and Fishing Lodge. You’ll have to switch between the different forms of gathering food based on what’s available around you to, this is also to prevent your people from straying too far from the gord.

Unfortunately, nothing happens without some effort and you’ll need to assign your people to the specific buildings so they can gather your resources. However, you are incredibly limited on people when you establish a new gord, so you’ll need to constantly shift people around to different roles or for children to be born and grow up. Though while you do get children now and then based on your gord’s current growth rate, they don’t have to stand by idly. You can assign children to assist an adult, and they don’t really do much except gain experience for that specific job. If you don’t want to send them out into the darkness, you can also just leave them at a Temple to generate Faith for you.

You’ll eventually meet Lynx, The Witch. She’ll gladly help you with her magic, but she needs faith to power her Incantations as well. Incantations in Gord is basically the only form of magic you’ll have. As long as you have enough Faith, you can use them to turn a battle in your favor or do some quick damage to an enemy attacker. However, each incantation will cost you some faith and come with a cooldown, use them wisely, or you might run dry when you need them most.

As mentioned before, your people and your gord will be attacked by other tribes, wild animals and much worse. Your people can fight, but they don’t do much damage and will most likely get killed instead, You’ll need some form of militia that comes in the form of Archers and Axemen that can be trained at the Archery Range and Axe Pit. Sadly, you’ll need to gold to train either and to maintain both. This is actually quite unbalanced and unforgiving because you have no way of getting gold in the early stages of the game, so you’re forced to burn through what little gold you have. Running out means your militia’s Sanity will start dropping because you can’t pay them, at least they’ll still fight, but you’ll need to keep them alive.

Aside from the health of your people, you’ll also need to keep an eye on their Sanity, as they can also cause some serious backfire in ways you don’t want. In a land filled with darkness and nightmarish creatures, it’s only natural that Sanity plays such a big part. Luckily, keeping your people’s Sanity in check is easy with the Meadery, just give your people some time to drink their sorrows away or make sure they always have some light wherever they are for a slower gain. Health is handled in a similar way with the Balia because a long and hot bath can fix most aches and pains.

If either the health or Sanity of one of your people drops to nothing, they become a little less worth using. Each person can be downed once, but they’ll need to be revived by someone else, though this comes with the downside of them having an affliction. Sanity dropping to zero will also cause an affliction after a breakdown. Afflictions can range from slower movement speed to occasionally attacking allies, and they will bite you where you don’t want them to bite you and can cripple your gord if you’re not careful.

Now that you’ve gotten a good feel for Gord, got your economy up and explored the map, you’ll need to work on more advanced resources for upgrades and further militia power. You’ll need to build a Clayworks for Clay and an Ironworks for Iron, and you’ll need both for upgrades to your gord’s walls and various other buildings to increase their capacity. Then there’s the elephant in the room, the Goldmine. After a lot of suffering to get to this point in the story where you actually unlock the ability to build one, you’ll finally be able to get gold to grow your militia.

If you’re really pressed for resources or even gold, you’ll need to take a fighter or two and a scout to go exploring for boxes, chests, stone piles, and hopefully… A friendly NPC who’s willing to trade. You can get all kinds of resources from a little exploring, though you can’t run your economy off that alone. It’s more just a nice bonus to go on top of what you’re getting. As for the NPCs you’ll meet, knowing where they are will help in the long run with every mission. The Hermit will usually ask for gold or other resources but can cure afflictions from your people, the Alchemist will turn items you find into gold. And then there’s the travelling merchant, who works in a mobile shop for items.

The maps on Gord come with a slightly forgiving side, at least. Aside from the various resources you’ll find, you’ll also find captured people who would gladly join you. However, if you’re out exploring and you need some quick Sanity or health, worry not, the plant life will provide it. Scattered all over the map, you’ll find little clusters of Red Mushrooms, which are great for healing, Yellow Flowers for Sanity, and White Flowers for the odd case of poison.

To save the most horrific for last, Gord has to throw one more curveball at you in the form of random events and Horrors. Random events take place at random and usually come with a choice you’ll need to make. These choices can make or break a gord because there’s always a chance of it going South. As for the Horrors, each new mission has a unique Horror that will demand a sacrifice from you. Sacrifices vary between Horrors, but one in particular is asking for a child because it’s hungry. You’ll need to either appease the Horror or kill it, appeasing it is usually easier as killing will most likely be a suicide mission, not appeasing the Horror in the time given will result in some serious consequences for you and your people.

Covenent.dev went all in with the world design for GGord, the initial cinematic gives you a good idea as to what’s going on in the world, but the cinematics after that are just amazing. The level of detail is almost astonishing, and as a tiny spoiler, Edwyn has a face that only an Eldritch Horror of a mother could love, but you’d LOVE to kick his stupid face in as well. As for the rest of Lysatia, Gord focuses a lot on the dark horror aspects of life and has no issue with leveraging it as far as possible. Sometimes, it makes you wonder what’s really lurking in the dark. All this combined, drives the immersion through the roof, even if it is an RTS.

On the sound front for Gord, keeping in mind that this game takes place in a slightly more primitive time, the use of more Nordic-based music ties everything together in the best ways. There’s a very slight background soundtrack that builds a great ambience, and this also ties in well with the darkness you have to explore while carrying the feeling of fear and struggle. What really made Gord shine was the voice acting.

Most of your prompts are done with Boghdan’s voice. As for the rest of the people you meet and deal with, each voice perfectly matches the character design, and the voice actors played their parts a little too well, especially Edwyn’s voice actor. He hit the nail on the head with being semi-natally and annoying while keeping it incredibly condescending.

Overall, Gord is a little rough around the edges and maybe a little too unforgiving, but not impossible. With its incredibly rich story to experience and diverse mechanics, you’ll feel the struggle as much as your tribe will feel it every step of the way until you can reach the Golden Route in Lysatia. However, you’ll need to survive the horrors standing in your way while uncovering a darker plot.

Jay Claassen (@R3GR3T_3NVY)
Editor, NoobFeed