Rustler Review – Serf’s up

Here’s the pitch: Ye olde medieval times…but modern. If you were a Hollywood film producer, you’d probably point to a poster of A Knight’s Tale with a smile on your face, and spit on the poster for 2018’s Robin Hood. Cinema has had plenty of fresh takes on Arthurian legends, Robin of Locksley biopics, and assorted hamlets of dung-covered peasants rising to the occasion. And now the gaming industry finally has its spin on a genre that is seldom used to shift discs.

Rustler is–according to its own developers and anyone who has played it in Steam early access for the last six months–Grand Theft Auto if you dialed back the clock by several centuries. All the inspiration from that franchise’s early top-down days is there, from high-speed horse heists to intentionally bad humor, radio stations replaced with local bards ready to let loose on a lute, and the long polearm of the law being a constant presence that doesn’t take too kindly to hijinks of the wacky variety.

It’s an inspired idea, but one that isn’t pulled off too well. Rustler’s a great-looking game that really sells you on the idea of its GTA-esque visuals, its various missions that routinely end in mayhem, and an ending that sends you on a quest to win the heart of a fair maiden. However, it doesn’t stick the landing thanks to a number of other factors.

For starters, the game handles like a whale with an eating disorder thanks to its sloppy controls, the overall humor can’t decide if it wants to be Monty Python or Snatch, and it has a frugal save system designed by Dark Souls players looking to cause maximum suffering. Seriously, a few autosave points would have been seen as a blessing, considering how tough and lengthy some missions are.

Bad controls can be forgiven, but Rustler takes a great concept and wastes it by relying far too much on try-hard edgy reference material, ripping its own eyelid off as it knowingly wins at the player with a “hey remember when” attitude while it drops dated nudges to the past. There’s nothing wrong with that humour of course, but it’s overused and beaten like a dead horse, or a tween discovering swear words in primary school.

It’s a shame because I really wanted to like the game, but an hour in and I was groaning at an obvious setup while being tasked to cause some mayhem. By hour six I was pondering the idea of using my time more constructively. Like seeing how many crayons I could shove up my nose before doing brain damage. Answer: Biscuit.