One Evening with Queen's Domain - A Modern King’s Field

Before Elden Ring, before Dark Souls, there was King’s Field. A game series that is almost forgotten nowadays, but that laid the groundwork for a whole genre. At its core King’s Field already had almost everything that makes Souls-likes so special. In this Queen's Domain review for the Switch 2, I share my first impression after 10 hours. I explain why this modern take on King’s Field evokes the same feelings as the classic while still rounding out its sharp edges.

Queen's Domain shows what truly matters

One day before Queen's Domain came out, I started to play one of the most hyped titles this year, Phantom Blade 0. I played the game for 3 hours and honestly felt bored to death. The game offers amazing graphics, outstanding animations and in general a lot of high budget production values. But to me it all felt so hollow. Combat had no impact, exploration felt very limited and boss fights felt on-rails, more like an interactive cutscene.

Then I played Queen's Domain a day later. A game that looks like it could be 25 years old, with stiff animations and surely a small budget. It hooked me from the first second and since I started playing, it's all I can think about.

Now, you might be thinking, why compare the two? Well, if you zoom out far enough both are in a similar genre. Both are at their core Souls-likes. So why is it that a clearly more modern and more expensive game like Phantom Blade 0 feels so much worse to play than Queen's Domain?

Queen's Domain nails the sense of discovery

The first hour of Queen's Domain is honestly magical. You start off stranded on a mysterious island. The game doesn't hold your hand at all, from the start you get equipped with a rusted sword and off you go. Your goal is simply to explore the island and find your way.

Enemies are tough and the game is slow, wanting you to play patiently. Combat is probably the one factor where Queen's Domain feels the least like the Souls-likes we know nowadays. The game is played from a first-person perspective, most enemies have rather simple attack animations, but if they hit you, they hurt you a lot.

So you really have to be precise and smart about your way of approaching fights, rush in too fast and you're done for. Queen's Domain is retro in all the right ways. You, for example, have no quick save system. You can only save your game with blue crystals, many of them far away from each other, if you die, your progress gets lost.

This fact invokes such tension from the get go, the game doesn't tell you where to go, you have to figure it out yourself. Within the first hour, the game does such a nice vertical slice of everything Queen's Domain has to offer.

During this time, I found a unique weapon that granted me an ability that helped me a lot. After I stumbled through a forest, I found some old ruins, leading into a mysterious dungeon. The atmosphere is so tight at all times. Inside the dungeon I found a key item needed for progression and an elevator, leading to unlocking a new shortcut that brought me back to the first blue crystal on the island.

At the end of the first hour, I faced my first boss and as a reward I got a sword that grants me the ability to fly for a short period of time. This in turn, of course opened up exploration a lot.

Now, Queen's Domain is a game that lives off the sense of discovery. So I don't really want to spoil anything more. All I can say is I spent around 10 hours with the game and the surprises keep on coming. Every time I go around a corner, I find some new rewarding secret.

Is Queen's Domain worth playing?

What really impressed me about Queen's Domain though, is the way it modernises King’s Field. If you want to make a retro game with modern features, it's so easy to overdo it and kill the retro vibe. Queen's Domain developer, Freshly Baked Games LLC, nails it. For example, the game offers an in-game bestiary. When you defeat an enemy for the first time it gets an entry here. There you can see what type of weapon they are weak against, but also what items they can drop.

This helps a lot, especially when you run out of a certain healing item and you don't know where to find it. But Queen's Domain also plays rather fast for such a slow game. With an endless sprint ability and the sword that makes you fly, exploration of older areas becomes fast. This really helps, as the game rewards backtracking and being this fast helps to prevent the game from becoming a slog.

All in all, Queen's Domain is shaping up to be very high on my game of the year list and is honestly the biggest surprise of the year for me. In many ways, it reminds me a lot of Mina the Hollower. Both games took a real classic and put their own modern spin on it, while retaining all the qualities of the past. In a world where games are becoming too hand-holdy, Queen's Domain respects the intelligence of its players and already feels like a modern classic. Give it a chance, you won’t regret it.