Battling for supremacy in the medieval era takes on a whole new meaning when it’s your hand-built fortress under siege. Melbourne-based RDBK Studios presents an early look at Renown, a PvP open-world survival game where only the strongest survive. I had a chance to sit down with the developers and see what early gameplay would be like with several other players. While I had to complete my full experience later, there were strong foundations for a solid PvP experience.
There is no real narrative behind Renown other than being the last man standing. Everyone starts out in the wilderness and must literally build their way to success. Harvest resources, build a home, find weapons, and battle anything that tries to kill you. Thankfully, everyone started out in a safe zone where you can find equipment and armour racks to properly defend yourself. Those racks were also useful for testing on your own time because crafting your own equipment is difficult.
Our experience revolved around combat, though I didn’t get to experience much combat firsthand. What I saw of combat involving multiple players was hectic melee combat where everyone was swinging and dodging. You aren’t just hacking at other players, but timing your swings and parrying their strikes. Most of the playtest involved melee weapons, but there were archers for long-range combat.
However, I’ve seen similar combat in games like Chivalry or Kingdom Come: Deliverance. The attack movements in Renown took a long time to activate, and that interferes with parrying times. While combat can be silly fun as you try to land hits, I also found it frustrating to have a long wind-up time to attack or even harvest resources since everything is slow. This makes combat difficult and you are often relying on your animations finishing rather than focusing on timing or skill.
Another part of the game is building your own base, and that’s something I was able to focus on later. You harvest materials and convert them into building materials. While you can lay down a bed and other simple items, creating an actual house requires a foundation. Once you lay down the foundation, you can place a floor and walls, then start building a fortress. It’s not easy, but fortunately, I could harvest lots of materials and construct some housing.
Just like combat, base building didn’t bring anything unique. If anything, it was more complex than other survival games since it’s not clear why you need certain workstations. Even reading the tutorials didn’t help me much since I never understood why a Banner has to be made at a crafting table. If I weren’t in a safe zone, would I be able to construct anything? The UI had a basic rundown, but even when I took the time to work with the menus, I often unequipped items or couldn’t find the tutorial I needed.
It’s clear the game is still in the early stages. Switching weapons and tools is slow, arms stretch out a lot, and crafting stations don’t have clear instructions. I also had the game crash a few times, even when the server wasn’t filled with people. There are a lot of areas that need improvement, and overall, the game needs something special to stand out from the crowd. But fighting against players and reinforcing your buildings is a fun concept to play with if you want a few hours of fun. Hopefully, some more polish ahead of its Early Access release later this year will allow some of those rough edges to be sharpened properly.
Renown begins Early Access on Steam sometime during Q3 2025.
About the Author
Victor Tan
He/Him
Victor spends his time trying to help players out of tricky situations and give them the guidance they need to succeed. Outside of the video game world, you can find him training at the gym or doing simple improv activities.
