So, here goes my review.

Allow me to start with the pros:

1. The game looks pretty good for a browser game (the Steam version is basically a stand-alone client for a GTArcade browser game which exists outside Steam). It is, in fact, an officially licensed product from HBO.
2. It has original GoT music and even some audio that was cut from the show itself.
3. The potential of this game is great. This game can be very engaging at times and the game's population is vast. The game has events that rotate regularly and can be fun (Castle Siege, Kingdom vs. Kingdoms, Alliance Conquest, and many more). These events, however, can take hours or even days to complete.
4. Players can collaborate with each other to gain control of key strongholds of a map modeled after GoT's Westeros, or can simply engage in PvP trying to dominate one another.

I say "great potential" due to the fact that, unfortunately, the the game has plenty of questionable agendas, which I will now try to explain in the "cons" part of my review.

Everything that's even remotely good in this game is behind a very, very steep paywall. So steep, that makes me think that the game was rushed to launch, for the sole purpose of making back the money spent on licensing the GoT franchise as fast as possible at that. Expect to pay tons, no, truckloads of real money, or lose if you don't. Please allow me to elaborate:

1. You want a commander like Daenerys? Jaime? Jon? "Recharge"...
2. You want to build faster? Train troops instantly? "Recharge".
3. You want your Lord to wear good armor with good badges? "Recharge"!
4. Do you want to speed up timers, which exist on every single damn thing in this game, instantly? You know what to do.
5. The aforementioned timers are insane. Without proper buffs from research equipment, your dragon, et cetera, some tasks can take up to 900 days (!) to complete. Worry not, my Lord, for a measly few thousand real dollars you can rush these tasks to instant completion.
6. Most of the iconic GoT characters cost real money and are not available to obtain via in-game avenues. They are also extremely overpowered (gee, I wonder why that is?). No pay? No win.

The "recharge" prices are nothing short of stupid. 100 black diamonds (the premium in-game currency) cost $10, with a maximum "recharge" value of $1000 (yes, that's right). Thankfully, Steam does not allow adding more than $100 per transaction to your Steam wallet, so there is a safety mechanism of sorts for those with spending addiction. This mechanism does not exist in the browser version.

In-game prices are just a small part of the developer's marketing scheme. Please allow me to elaborate on this and on how much things really cost in this game.

To unlock a Common tier (worst tier) champion like Daenerys, you will need to spend 2000 black diamonds, or $200. Or $150, if you are using coupons that are available every week on Monday (which also have a 24-hour expiration timer as well, but this shouldn't be a surprise for you now).

You'd think, "I've got her now, she's mine!". Nope, not even close. This is because you will now need to upgrade your Daenerys to the Legendary tier (tier 5), which will cost you a sum total of $5500 without coupons. That's five and a half thousand dollars. You'd now think, "Who cares, I don't need a maximum-tier Daenerys! I'll be fine!" Wrong again. There is no point in not having a Legendary-tier commander in this game at all, because at endgame, non-legendary commanders simply do not cut it as the stat difference between tier 4 and tier 5 is nothing short of dramatic. Now, that is just one good commander out of the minimum 5 you need to deploy to do anything in this game. Thankfully there are a few non-canonical, along with 3 or 4 actual, GoT commanders the game will award you for completing quests, dailies, et cetera. These commanders, however, do not compare to the paid ones in terms of skills and stats.

As I previously mentioned, your Lord (your avatar in this game) wears armor. There are a few armor sets you can acquire in-game doing daily activities and farming, however, as you already might have guessed, the very best all-around armor set in this game is a cash shop-only item which costs $22000 to get to Legendary tier. No, I did not make a typo: that's twenty-two thousand dollars.

After the armor comes the third (Sapphire) dragon, which costs $16000 to fully grow (it's a cash shop item) and Royal Badges which cost the same, and...

You'd think: "damn, that was rough, but I'm done...". Nope. Then come troop appearance skins, which all add buffs to your stats and cost $17000 for the full collection. Then castle skins which will run you around $10000 for the full set. Finally, the top dragon skills at $1000 each (of which you'll need a minimum of 8)... You get the point.

Onto the next thing. There seems to be very little to no QA employed by the developer. The game's English is at a solid middle-school level, with misspelled words and improper grammar everywhere. Text on some dialog boxes is missing or clipping into the void. The game performs very poorly at times and crashes out of the blue. There's not even an "Exit Game" button; you need to press Alt+F4 to exit it.

Next, the awesome GoT audio disappears after playing a while. This, however, seems to be a Steam-only issue, because it does not happen in the browser version.

Finally, even support in this game promotes pay-to-win favoritism. After spending a certain amount of thousands of dollars, the game will present you with a pop-up with the developer's "VIP support" contact information. This enables you to request support directly from the developer via SMS or Discord. Said support is eons better than requesting support via a "regular" support ticketing system. I am also told that even this "VIP support" has "levels" to it which are based on the amount of real money you've spent. Really?

Overall, as I've mentioned before, the game feels and plays like as it was rushed to completion and launch. Every single damn perk, feature or event in this waiting simulator quickly takes you to the cash shop. I cannot help but wonder if this game was launched with the sole intent to be an extremely quick cash grab, to make money back from an expiring license which may not be granted a further extension by HBO.

Onto the verdict. With the pros and cons out of the way, please allow me to say that there are players who play this game without making any purchases at all. It is extremely difficult and most you will be able to do in game is assist those who do pay. Without paying you will never rank in the top or be viable in solo PvP. Without paying you will be forced to hide and truce your city most of the time. Does this mean you cannot play this game? No. If chasing power and might is not your thing, this game's social aspect, along with the abundance of events, can cater to fun times. The fact that this game is an extreme pay-to-win, however, along with questionable marketing strategies by its developer, as well as the fact that this game appears to be a low-budget and low-quality production, all prohibit me from recommending this game to anyone, ever.

February 2021 edit: the sum total you will need to spend in this game to be the "top whale" is $168,000 (one hundred sixty-eight thousand USD). This is because a new "commander awakening" system has been added which adds another 5 tiers on top of already expensive commanders.

*** WARNING - DON'T DO IT! ***

I played this extensively when it first came out as a desktop/mobile app. I ran my own top-K6 alliance, and I can tell you three things:

1) It's highly addictive, but not in a good way. You'll find yourself time-sinking 6+ hours a day on this. Goodbye productivity.
2) They entice you with 'specials' to pay for much needed heroes & packs. But be warned, this is for the 'standard level' only and the next pack to upgrade it to the next level will cost double - so on and so forth. To get a top level hero, you'd have spent about USD250. It's literally a trap!
3) No matter how much time you put in, or how good you are, unless you are willing to spend thousands of USD you'll never be able to win against the whales that play this. Their advertising system matches that of a gambling addict, and that's how they getchya!

Here's the problem: it's kinda fun to play, and satisfying to watch your city grow. So if you want to play, then play, but please please don't get sucked in to spending money as it's a dark and treacherous road that only leads to regret.

[Overall]: Hoping this message saves a few people from a world of hurt. Here I am wasting time building my bloody city again DAMN IT but I 100% wont be investing any cash into this again. You've been warned ;)

In order to be competetive and play with the big boys you'll need to spend at least $45000.

I am not kidding you.

5 Commanderss at $5000 each, unavailable through normal play. These commanders are also some of the most iconic characters of GOT, Daenerys, Cersei, Jon, Baelish, Clegane. If you don't pay you'll never have them.
1 Armor set at $20000, also unavailable through normal play.

If you don't buy those items, you'll not be able to compete no matter how much or how long you play.

Additionally, they have no customer support unless you're considered a 'VIP' which is someone who spends more than $25k. They are a Chinese based company and will not comply with any common rules or laws in the western world regarding refunds or similar.

Edit: Found out that the company potentially selectively enforces their ToS based on how much money you spend on the game, will update when info is complete.

This pay-to-win(p2w) cash grab has been available for months prior to this Steam release. You can either read the vapid reviews of new players talking about how the Game of Thrones IP is cool, or you could continue reading and get an in-depth analysis of the game from someone who's spent time on it. Forgive the long-winded review, you can find a tl,dr at the end.

The first question you need to ask yourself is "Do I want to spend 20+ grand (yes, 20,000 USD) to still be a small fish in this game?" If you answered no, then do yourself the favor and skip playing this game.

If you answered yes to wanting to waste more money on a mobile game port than certain new cars cost, then this game might be for you. Otherwise, stay away, the devs designed it to be as p2w as possible. That 20k is just a drop in the bucket. There's a best-in-slot (BiS) gear set in the game that will run you about 200 USD per crate with a limit of 200 purchases per day it's available. If you max the daily limit on cash shop , you're not guaranteed to have a max quality set. You're buying RNG chests for materials to craft the gear and drops aren't guaranteed [even though they're advertised as guaranteed]). Good news, they added in a jewelry set of the same name and it operates in the same fashion, so that's even more money to spend if you want the gear.

Now, you might be asking yourself why would I care if I had the best gear(Glorious set). Well, you stand no chance against paid players with the free gear available,and you lose resources,troops,etc when your city is attacked. It will take you forever to build up the free gear sets(depending on your play time, it might take you years)--they limit the in-game drops on purpose to encourage spending on gear crates on the cash shop. Also,the free gear is ridiculously inferior to the paid gear; if you took all the free combat sets and combined them, you would have roughly the stats of the Glorious set. Here's a stat overview of the Glorious set maxed. https://i.imgur.com/08RKDX9.png

Yes, that's something that people spent thousands on in this game. There are commanders that will cost a few grand too, then you have research that will take years,unless you spend money on research speed-ups(roughly 300k in euros if you want to instantly max research, and that's not including the new Great City research tree they added in). Then you have badges,dragon skills,commanders,commander friendship bonuses,troop skins,building upgrades requiring vast amounts of blue diamonds(an in-game currency you can slowly acquire in-game or just spend real money to acquire faster),castle exterior skins,etc. And all of these game elements affect your combat effectiveness, and you have to pay to get them maxed in a reasonable time.

They're adding in new game systems on a consistent basis, and the only common factor between all of them is that they want people to spend. There are people who claim to have spent half a million on the game(500k USD). If it's an odd flex or a lie, that's up to you to decide. I wouldn't be surprised; there are all sorts of people who like to waste money on a lackluster mobile game. I know a guy who's spent 24k USD to only have 270m in power. I know another player who spent 5k USD to only have 50mil power--he wasted a lot of money on commanders. There are people with 1.5 billion + power in the game currently.

Now that the money aspect is covered, we can talk about the game balance. If you ever played the card game "War" as a child, this game operates in a similar fashion but with a tad more mathematical variables. Who wins is based on who has the bigger number--formations,research,gear,troop skins,etc affect the fights--basically, the people who spend way more than the other will win unless they royally mess up. They'll be sitting there slapping Aces on the table while you only have an Eight at best. If they spent enough money on the game, they can send the wrong formation and the whole works and still beat you with how much this game lets you stack up bonuses via paying. The balance is so bad that the free-to-play players are quitting in droves and the company is working on merging servers already--the game isn't even a year old btw. It's also why they're trying to get people to portray the game in a positive light via paid promotion without notifying the viewers of it being paid promotion. https://i.imgur.com/cptUflB.png

You know a game is bad when the company is trying to pay players with in-game currency for good publicity. Rockstar isn't offering cash in GTA Online for people to stream it or make Youtube videos on it, are they? Why in-game currency instead of a typical paid promotion campaign that other companies do? 1. They're cheap and greedy. 2. They think it means the streamers/content creators don't have to disclose that they're paid to promote the game. Also, how many of these Steam reviews do you think they paid people to make? I'm willing to bet some of them were and they aren't disclosing it.

I could go on for hours detailing all the various reasons you should avoid the company, but I'll let one of their reps show you that for me. They're a Chinese company;their reps pretend to be American, and they act like this when you ask a question about the game. Note how he tries to steer me into spending money. 45,000 BD costs 4.5k USD, and months later the same player was selling his account for 750 USD. Don't be this guy;don't play the game. Almost a 4 grand loss on a mobile game, ouch. You're better off just lighting your money on fire and having cattle stampede over it. The amount you'd have left intact would likely be a greater amount, and it'd be more entertaining than this game.
https://i.imgur.com/8alYDuq.png

Tl,dr: The game is a p2w cash grab aimed at maximizing profit during the game's guaranteed short life cycle, and that profit is invested into their next p2w cash grab that will use the same game design but with a different IP as an aesthetic skin. Why make a good game when you can just get a fool to spend thousand of dollars on anything? Rinse,repeat--Youzu games

Not even a Lannister could pay his debts after playing this game.

Every system that you built in this game quickly dumps you off into the store.

70 bucks for an iconic commander pack and you don't even give the initial 10 tokens to unlock the commander? You guys are insane.

Mobile game on steam.

Pay to win.

Free to play always loses.

In the Game of Thrones you Pay to Win or you die.

I wanted to play this game for a laugh and see how long I could play it before I got to the pay-2-win wall. It took about 1h30m.

🔔 EXCLUSIVE ONCE IN A LIFETIME CHANCE😱 🎡ROULETTE WHEEL🎡 😲😲 28 MINUTES LEFT 💵4440% VALUE💵 🔔

If you asked me how this game works I honestly don't think I could give you much insight, it is so absolutely confusing and directionless and soulless. All I can tell you is that it is an auto-battler, the rest of your time is spent in the most horribly made UI system I've ever seen, it is like traversing a maze. It takes literal effort to be able to find every menu you have to go to for upgrades, etc.
There are so many things you must upgrade, build, claim, heal, etc. It takes so much time and if you close some menu within a menu within a menu within a menu you'll spend a few minutes figuring out how to even find it again.

I tried for a time to understand things but just gave up knowing this isn't a game I actually care about, and went back to 'click where the arrow tells me to click' and quit once I hit that P2W wall where I was now stuck with nothing to do because I had to either pay money or wait 30 minutes for that timer, 2 hours for that timer, 22 hours for that timer, etc.

It is honestly one of the worst made UI's and most confusingly made system I've ever encountered. The game is absolutely littered with menus, it is pure chaos and there's no reasonable location for any buttons, it is as if it is spread around at complete random.
I assume this is on purpose, people who pay don't really have to worry about this because it skips everything and it's done for if you just click the swipe card button.

🎇⚠🎇NEW COLLECTIBLE OUT NOW 8000% VALUE 90% DISCOUNT🎇⚠🎇

You're thrown right into the game as if you've played it before with no chance for 10-15 minutes to do literally anything other than click the buttons that an arrow tells you to click, nothing is explained, no icons have tool-tips on them, why you have to do this or how that system works or who that is or what that building is, etc., non of it is explained you're just commanded to click the button. Tool-tips appear after the tutorial.

Sound mixing is horrid and just wrong, the intro was blasting out of my left speaker, suddenly certain sounds are ear-piercingly loud while other sounds can't be heard. The soundtrack is the GoT theme on repeat. No VO except for 2 second one-liners taken from the TV-show every once in a while.

The English is written in an overly formal and archaic style.

💹💰10818% VALUE‼ 41011% VALUE‼‼‼ 💹✈ 🥵 ONLY 10 HOURS LEFT 😱⏱

There are so many Daily Chests and Free Daily Reward and reward boxes like that, that I honestly lost track. It's a puzzle-game in and of itself to find them.
No joke there is a perk you can buy for money in a package on the store that makes it so you automatically claim all the free chests and random gift stuff because it is of course intentionally designed to drive you mad and spend so much time finding and clicking them all.

29 MINUTES LEFT 🕑 3210% 🤑🤑 VALUE PACKAGE 💰😎 BUY NOW OR LOSE OUT FOREVERRRR 😭!!!

Random bugs like "Tap here to continue" and "click anywhere" being a lie and you actually have to click on the click anywhere text itself to proceed. Random moments of transparent UI, icons being invisible, etc.

I'm not joking with these discount numbers and % values. Random pop-ups with things like 💎60291% VALUE💎 ⏳24M:32S⏳ (yes, sixty-thousand, and yes a timer that has started at a weird number even though it supposedly just started) and other stuff that said things like "Once in a life-time exclusive!" Absolute insanity.

You get a lot of free stuff the first hour of the game in an attempt to addict you.

📩SURPRISE POP UP ⏲🧨15 MINUTES LEFT🧨⏲ 🤯5910% VALUE🤯 💳✔BUY NOW✔💳 OR 😨LOSE OUT FOREVER!!! 😭😢


If you liked this review or otherwise found it helpful in deciding whether or not to buy this game, feel free to follow my Curator page.

Pay to win