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I didn’t watch HBO’s Game of Thrones series—I get my fill of political intrigue and badly-behaved dimwits from the real world, thanks—and so when the whole thing fizzled out like a wet tissue tossed into a burn pit, it was a bit of a non-event for me: I was mostly just surprised at how quickly the once-reverent fanbase turned on the whole thing.
But maybe hunger for the continuing (or, I suppose, repeated) adventures of Jon Snow, Peter Dinklage, and the huge dude with the face (look, I told you I didn’t watch it) persists, because a new game based on the series called Game of Thrones: Kingsroad is set to launch into early access today on Steam.
(Game of Thrones: Kingsroad was supposed to be out now, in fact, but some last-minute issues have pushed the release to a currently-estimated 1 pm PT/4 pm ET.)
You can tell GoT: Kingsroad is based on the HBO series and not George RR Martin’s still-incomplete series of fantasy novels because the trailer is filled with familiar faces, and in fact it states explicitly that players will “encounter familiar faces”: There’s Cersei, there’s Jaime, there’s Roose (who I briefly thought was Bronn), and of course Jon Snow puts in an appearance too.
The gang’s all here, as they say, which is good because the inclusion of those faces is pretty much the only way to tell this is a Game of Thrones game. It otherwise looks like a pretty generic fantasy RPG: Verdant landscapes, towering castles, and big monsters abound, and the number of hulking dudes with big axes makes it seem more like a mobile Skyrim knock-off than anything else.
![[Game of Thrones: Kingsroad] Steam Early Access Trailer - YouTube](https://img.youtube.com/vi/hC-eVMvcRBQ/maxresdefault.jpg)
Game of Thrones: Kingsroad is also a mobile game, by the way, available for Android and iOS devices, which in gameplay terms may limit it somewhat compared to full-on PC releases. That’s not necessarily an issue: Our own man on the scene, Jon Bolding, didn’t seem to care much for the demo he played during February’s Steam Next Fest, but some on Reddit seem pretty happy with it.
“When I play it on PC with a controller, I don’t see anything that makes it feel like a mobile game,” redditor CyberpunkFreak wrote. “The combat system is genuinely satisfying, and the graphics are actually pretty solid!”
Maleficent_Ad5744 concurred, writing that Game of Thrones: Kingsroad “is a AA game with Witcher 3-esque combat, decent mechanics, and a relatively okay story. Just because it has a mobile port that does NOT make it a mobile game.”
Separate from all that, though, I have to wonder if there’s really much of an appetite for this sort of thing. Game of Thrones was undeniably a pop culture phenomenon when it debuted, but by the time it was over it seemed to just sort of disappear and be forgotten. The spinoff series House of the Dragon has been well-received but it doesn’t seem to be quite as everyone, everywhere, all the time as the original was: A good show but not nearly as inescapable as its predecessor.
On the other hand, the Game of Thrones: Kingsroad demo was among the most played in the February 2025 Steam Next Fest, just one spot behind the surprise indie hit Schedule I and ahead of bigger names like PUBG: Blindspot and The First Berserker: Khazan. So hey, maybe I’m just out of touch.
In any event, if you’re curious but unconvinced you can wait a bit and see what it’s all about for free. Game of Thrones: Kingsroad will be a free-to-play game when it goes into full release; if you want to get into the early access version, though, you’ll have to pony up for one of three starter packs, which go from $25 to $90 depending on whether you want the battle pass and various bits of in-game items and currency.
Early access is expected to last at least four weeks, and will include “50 chapters of the main storyline, hundreds of side missions and open world encounters, multiple co-op dungeons, and endgame PvE challenges.”
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Kurt Indovina
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