Review: Kingdoms of Amalur: The Legend of Dead Kel (DLC)
The Legend of Dead Kel launches as Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning’s first significant piece of downloadable content. While not nearly an expansion pack, this hefty piece of content is sure to please gamers looking to get out of the dense forested areas that’s so common in the core game.
Marooned on the island of Gallows End, your hero is tasked with dealing with the renegade pirate lord known as Dead Kel. Captain Brattigan, a good hearted, naïve, and dim-witted ship captain joins you in your mission to confront Dead Kel, however she doesn’t travel with you nearly as much as she could have. One of Amalur’s biggest issues is a lack of cohesive character development and it’s still a glaring issue in the latest piece of downloadable content. Initially there are tons of interesting characters, and it’s a real shame they’re not developed to their potential. Dead Kel in particular, while extremely menacing, just doesn’t have enough unique spark to make him a memorable villain. The same can be said about his four companions, though they do come in interesting places, and offer some unique challenges. The cult-like settlement of Cape Solace is a unique character, but is immediately off-putting because it falls short of actually being a town, and feels like a poorly put-together makeshift camp; which could have been the intention of 38 Studios. Regardless, the self-less devotion to the island’s deity and the conflict with Dead Kel is enough to progress the plot forward, and makes for one of the more interesting places in Amalur despite its issues.
Gallows End remains the most interesting character in the entire package due to the vast variety of secondary quests, varied environments, and the plethora of new equipment pieces to collect. The most note-worthy addition to The Legend of Dead Kel is Gravehal Keep. This small keep can be fully upgraded with sets of required materials. Essentially the player can transform a run-down keep into the wonder of Gallows End. Gravehal Keep allows you to raise pets, which give permanent statistical bonuses to your character, and even allows you to steal people from the aforementioned area known as Cape Solace. Given my disdain for those particularly inhabitants it was nice knowing that I took the only self-sufficient people from the group and hired them as my personal staff for Gravehal’s Keep. I figure it’s only a matter of time before they resort to some random act of cannibalism, because they sure as hell aren’t getting into my keep.
One of the other bright spots to the content is the addition of several unique weapons, and sets of armor that make exploring the island of Gallows End more enjoyable. One of the other advertised features was more unique creatures, however there are very few, and the ones that are unique are simply iterations of previous fought monsters.
The Legend of Kel is a breath of fresh air to the Kingdoms of Amalur universe and a piece of content any fan of the title should think about picking up. With a 3-5 hour main quest and a variety of well done side missions, this piece of content is sure to entice fans of this fantastic new IP. Here’s to seeing we see more fresh new content grace Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning.
For more information on how we review games check out our criteria here. A copy of this DLC was provided to The Paranoid Gamer by the publisher for review purposes. If you have any questions about this DLC the reviewer will be able to answer them in the comment section. You can view our review for Kingdoms of Amalur here.