Swordhaven: Iron Conspiracy Finds Its Form with Cursed City

The contemporary resurgence of isometric PC role-playing games has shown that there is still a fringe of enthusiasts willing to trade modern polygonal magnificence for the systemic density of late nineties productions, those built on BioWare's Infinity Engine, the engine that powered Baldur's Gate and Planescape: Torment.

Into this niche landscape fits the work of Atom Team, already authors of ATOM RPG, a post-apocalyptic tribute to the early Fallout games that solidified the studio's reputation among genre purists. With Swordhaven: Iron Conspiracy, the team makes a more ambitious evolutionary leap: abandoning desolate sci-fi to land in the tactical fantasy of that same isometric tradition. We tested the title in version 1.1, named Cursed City, tackling the entire campaign without the burden of problems accumulated during early access, i.e., the phase when the game was available to the public in an incomplete form.

This neutrality made visible both the actual impact of the update and the structural limitations that no patch can fully correct. Cursed City is not a true correction of the title: it is the posthumous completion of a game that should not have been released earlier.

What happens after Cursed City arrives?

Nova Drakonia, the continent where the adventure takes place, is a wild frontier contested between the expansionist urges of the Cordonian Empire and the remnants of a vanished civilization. The protagonist arrives there by shipwreck, gets involved in the plot after receiving a mysterious amulet from a dying stranger, and reaches the coastal town of Clam Reach, the first hub of a narrative network that progressively expands, telling an ultimately interesting story. The conspiracy structure that gives the game its title, and which revolves around the mineral Balta, a rare substance at the center of conflicting economic and military interests, works to give the story a boost: information is distributed slowly through dialogues, environmental documents, and secondary encounters, and only in the advanced stages does the overall picture become clear.

For those approaching the title without knowing the original version, the narrative arc introduced by the patch concerning the archaeologist Lady Korynne, a figure who is encountered in the central phases of the game during the exploration of the Forgotten Canyons, appears smoothly integrated. The new portion of the game develops its arc in a vast underground area accessible via an encounter on the world map, adding approximately eight hours of content focused on subterranean horror and the deciphering of puzzles related to native culture. This section finally offers concrete answers to the mysteries that animate the Balta conspiracy, answers that were completely missing in the original version, leaving the main plot intolerably suspended.

The writing remains faithful to the studio's rough and irreverent style: dialogues are branched and take into account the cultural background of the protagonist chosen during creation, but they do not spare heavy irony about imperial ambitions or the credulity of the colonists. What is missing, in our opinion, is the characterization of travel companions as autonomous characters. Fiona, the archer companion available from the early hours, is built around her mechanical specialization in ranged weapons and scout abilities, but her personal narrative arc remains sketched. The problem repeats for other recruitable figures: they are vectors of skills, not characters with their own perspective on the world they traverse.

Even environmental storytelling, that is, everything the game communicates through the arrangement of objects, the architecture of spaces, and notes scattered in the environments, is a neglected element. Swordhaven's areas are functionally dense but rarely speak for themselves: the story is found in dialogues, not in spaces.

Many novelties and a good level of gameplay balance

Swordhaven's combat system allows you to switch at any time between classic turn-based and real-time with pause, a mode borrowed from Infinity Engine productions and more recently re-proposed in the two Pathfinder video game adaptations by Owlcat Games. In both modes, each character has a budget of action points per turn that funds movement, attacks, and special abilities. This economy is the heart of the tactical system, and in version 1.1, it still presents two distinct problems that feed into each other.

The first concerns the cost of active abilities. Special techniques linked to individual weapon categories have an increased action point cost compared to the basic attack, to the point that in practice it is almost always more efficient to rely on automatic attack in real-time with pause. It's not a complexity issue: it's that the risk-reward ratio never justifies the use of abilities in standard situations. The tactical system exists on paper, but the game never creates the conditions to make it necessary.

The second problem concerns the ability point budget. Swordhaven adopts a classless system where stats and abilities develop freely, but the number of points available at each level, already scarce on normal difficulty, is not enough to build a character competent in both combat and social interactions. The result is that those who invest in dialogues, intimidation, or persuasion struggle in encounters, and vice versa. The scarcity of ability points is not a design choice that encourages specialization: it is a calibration flaw that reduces options instead of enhancing them. The difficulty, which can be changed at any time during the game, adds ability points per level on easier settings, but empties the initial choice of meaning.

Heavy armor and shields further aggravate the warrior's position, imposing penalties on initiative and mobility that are rarely compensated by flat damage reduction. The only phase in which heavy melee builds show some utility is the initial one, when companions are not yet available and space control is worth more than damage per turn. But companions arrive late, later than the rhythm of random encounters would suggest, and in the early part of the game, the incomplete party is under pressure for which it is not yet equipped.

Patch 1.1 introduces new legendary items purchasable from merchants in the Beggars Corner and Kirzaka Castle areas, a village in the inner plains. These equipment offer higher stats than what was available at launch, but they do not address the root of the problem: they are vertical improvements that amplify the strengths of already strong builds without rebalancing weak ones. One correction, however, deserves full recognition: the group calculation for skill tests on the world map, which now considers the entire party instead of just the protagonist, substantially changes party building and makes it legitimate to delegate medicine, lockpicking, and outdoor survival to companions. It is worth noting, however, that some of these companions can only be obtained by completing certain tasks precisely: at least two recruitable figures in the second half of the game can be permanently lost due to dialogue choices or quest sequences not followed in the correct order.

Technically impeccable for what it offers

Swordhaven is not a demanding title. The fixed isometric view and moderate geometries leave the RTX 4060 very little to do: on the test configuration with SSD and ultrawide 21:9 monitor, the frame rate stably exceeds one hundred frames per second without perceptible stuttering, even in the most crowded encounters. Those with an older card will get the same experience.

Native and functional 21:9 support is present, but the interface betrays its original design: status bars, quick buttons, and information panels maintain spacing designed for 16:9, leaving noticeable side gaps in long sessions. No impact on gameplay, but it is a missed refinement.

Dynamic building transparency, introduced by the patch, however, solves a concrete problem: roofs and walls now fade when the group is indoors, eliminating the situational blindness that at launch forced camera rotation during indoor encounters. Sporadic crashes remain when loading some areas on the world map, without an identifiable systematic cause. The frequency is low, recovery via SSD is fast, but the flaw is still there.