New RPG Archaelund is Elder Scrolls with its foot stuck in Final Fantasy Tactics

rockpapershotgun.com:

I have a sneaking affection for slightly jarring genre hybrids - games like the relatively recent Disintegration and the much older Battlezone 2, which smush action mechanics together with real-time strategy, or the rather more elegant Puzzle Quest, in which you roll around a parchment landscape fighting wizards using the power of match-3. New open world RPG Archaelund, which launched in early access this week, and was brought to my attention by RPS supporter cpt_freakout, has something of that curious enchantment to it.

You'll explore its landscape in first-person, roving sandy plateaus and frontier towns that remind me of Morrowind, at times. Bump into a foe, however, and your first-person perspective undergoes a fission reaction, splitting into a full group of warriors who are controlled in top down.

The early access footage seems janky but endearing, and the game also has an appealingly grotty backstory (though going by screenshots, the in-game English localisation could use some polish). Gather close, my children, for it is time to speak of Lore: once upon a time, the continent of Andoria was ruled by a proud Empire. But then came the Horrors, an overwhelming otherworldly threat unleashed by a magical cataclysm.

The Empire's survivors fled across the seas to a distant colony, the island of Varannar, where they resettled and divided into four Exiled Kingdoms, each warped by their experiences of the fall. Varsailia, the strongest, are obsessed with preserving imperial history and traditions. The Ilmarans are a faction of religious zealots, while Thuram is a wacky magocracy formed by the surviving Imperial Wizards. Mercia, a kingdom founded by the old Imperial army, are all about discipline and slavery.

Being confined