GORD

Exploring the darkness on the edge of town

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Developer/publisher Covenant

Format PC

Origin Poland

Release 2022

For anyone who hasn’t brushed up on their Slavic history, a gord is a fortified settlement – the small town you’ll build up and defend in the debut game from Polish studio Covenant. As we talk to director Stan Just, who worked at CD Projekt as a producer on The Witcher 3 before founding his own studio, this isn’t the only unfamiliar term we encounter. Just describes the title as an “adventure strategy”, his attempt to sum up Gord’s very particular blend of genres.

Within the bounds of your village, the game takes the form of a small-scale city builder. “Intimate” is the word Just uses – an entire gord can fit onto a single screen without troubling the mouse wheel, its population capped somewhere in the low 20s (the exact number is still being decided). There are roughly two dozen structures in total, built initially out of wood and reeds, then clay and iron as your little civilisation grows.

To keep the resources flowing, though, you’ll have to step outside those walls. And here, in the shadows,