Game Review: Overlord – Fellowship of Evil (Xbox One)

When Overlord: Fellowship of Evil was announced fans of the earlier games were understandably excited. While neither set the gaming world alight they were unique ideas that offered a nice balance of fun & challenging gameplay. The series has built up something of a cult following & expectation was high for this latest instalment.

Sadly Codemasters took one look at what made the Overlord series popular with its fans & wiped their ass with it.

The first words that will come to mind upon loading the game up are “what is this?” Probably followed by several expletives as you realise you’ve wasted your money. Gone is the third person action roleplay gameplay, replaced by a bare-bones isometric top-down perspective.

Set centuries after the events of Overlord II, goodness prevails throughout the world. As it begins to spread into the minions home, Gnarl, the Chief minion decides to resurrect four dead evil beings tasked with bringing evil back into the world.

The four potential Overlords all have different looks & abilities (all pretty limited though) but are all upgradable as the game progresses. Split into 3 chapters and a prologue…the game has a few hours of content at best with increasingly repetitive gameplay.

A hack & slash game, you’ll move your Overlord through the levels defeating the exact same enemies over & over again until you reach your goal. Along the way you can collect loot (for upgrades to yourself & the minions) as well as take part in short speed runs through trap-laden areas. These in particular make little sense & just leave you frustrated with their confusing paths & varying difficulty.

The minions make a return in the most lacklustre way with control taken out of your hands. Instead you spawn them in depending upon the number you have available (even with upgrades this won’t reach above single figures). Rarely do they actually have any use occasionally needed to pass through barriers to hit switches & picking up loot. In battles the lack of control over them means you can’t really use them effectively.

Infuriatingly the game has a mechanic that sees your minions transformed into fluffy pink versions that will attack you should they step into the areas of the map that are dominated by goodness. An entire armada of minions can be wiped out in a second because of the lack of control you have over them, you can’t stop them from running through or into it.

They lack any charm & you’ll end up doing most of the work yourself relying on the blue minions mainly because of their healing ability.

The game looks bland, lacks detail & the top-down view does little to impress. Early levels that take place in the underworld are actually quite difficult to play with every colour melting into another making navigation tough.

Putting it simply the game is ugly. This is incredibly disappointing considering the potential for the next generation of consoles.

Ultimately Overlord: Fellowship of Evil is being sold as a 4-player co-op game where players take on the roles together working through the levels while also eliminating each other. Playable online & locally the game has been available only a few months but is a virtual ghost town already.

Game companies…no-one is going to play your games online if they are really bad games!

Overlord: Fellowship of Evil is a bad game & damages the reputation of the series with its existence. I have no idea what they were thinking…