Fate: Reawakened gives the nostalgic 20-year-old action RPG series a new lease on life
Who here remembers WildTangent? Back when digital distribution seemed like a novel idea and Steam was a new and unproven storefront, it was one of the bigger distributors of games online, and a cute little Diablo and Nethack-inspired dungeon crawler named Fate was its flagship title. Smash-cut twenty years ahead to the present day, and it’s rolling out now on Steam for one last tour as Fate: Reawakened, a polished-up remaster that incorporates the original Fate along with its three formerly standalone expansions.
It has been many years since I’ve played any of the Fate games, or even the Torchlight series of ARPGs that built on its foundations, but I do recall it being a pleasantly back-to-basics experience. Even at the time I felt that Diablo 2’s accelerating pace and power creep were a bit much, and Fate gave me a slower, simpler dungeon crawl in the vein of the first Diablo, but with a brighter, softer, more cartoony aesthetic.
Also in a nod to seminal roguelike Nethack, it introduced pets to the equation. Each adventurer was accompanied by some kind of loyal critter pal that could fight alongside you, be temporarily powered up by feeding them treats (such as seafood acquired through a simple but satisfying fishing minigame) or sent back to town to sell unwanted loot, saving you the trip. A simple addition, but it made the dungeons feel a lot less lonely, especially considering that it was a purely solo experience.
Despite the graphical improvements of this new version (which you can see compared to the original release in the launch trailer below), Fate: Reawakened still looks charmingly old-school. Chunky low-poly monsters, grid-based dungeons and simple particle effects mean this still looks like a twenty-year-old game, just a slightly higher budget one, rather than a tiny indie production from 2005.
Eagle-eyed fans in the Steam user reviews have highlighted some other tweaks from the original, such as more item spaces per character and multiple loadouts, but with a few questionable decisions like shrinking from six to four quick item slots. Only time and obsessive clicking will tell whether the changes are for the better, but none seem especially dramatic. This is a remaster, rather than a remake or overhaul.
Probably the biggest change is a refreshed UI, using a cleaner, more minimalist set of panels and icons better fitting modern widescreen aspect ratios. Strange to think that the original game was built with old 4:3 CRT monitors in mind, but it’s a good reminder how much things have changed (and how much has stayed the same) over the past twenty years. Mostly it just makes me feel old.
It also makes me realize that I never did play any of the three standalone expansions that this new version comes with; Undiscovered Realms, The Traitor Soul and The Cursed King. Each one added a new town with an accompanying dungeon to delve into, with new monsters to bother and loot to hoard, now all added to a shared item pool that spans all four campaigns. The last of which also added fully customizable NPC hirelings to the mix, letting your cute animal pal catch a breath for once and not have to tank everything you encounter.
As for original Fate developer Travis Baldree, he’s seemingly moved on from the games industry after Rebel Galaxy Outlaw failed to sell. Now he seems to be enjoying a cozy career writing about (and narrating) high fantasy heroes running coffee shops and book stores. Good for him, and good that his early games are still around and kicking too, even if they’re old enough to start their own families now.
Fate: Reawakened is out now on Steam for £19.99/$19.99, with a 20% launch discount running until March 19th.