Rune (video Game) - Gameplay

Gameplay

The game casts the player as Ragnar, a young Viking warrior. It follows a fairly generic fantasy plot based on Norse mythology. The various enemies Ragnar faces include among others man-eating fish, goblins, zombies, Norse dwarves and other Vikings. As the game goes on, as in most games of its type, better weapons are accumulated. Late in the game you find yourself wielding weapons of enormous size, even though most weapons maintain their usefulness to the end.

Weapons in Rune are divided into three categories: swords, axes, and maces/hammers. Each of the three classes have five weapons, ordered below in increasing size. Each weapon has a unique "Rune Power" that can be activated for a short period of time when the player has gathered sufficient energy from runes. Shields may be equipped along with the first three weapons of each class. Weapons of tier 4 and 5 are twohanded, and may not be used along with shields. Besides these standard weapons, other items such as torches and severed limbs may also be equipped to be used as weapons. While high-tier weapons tend to be preferable in singleplayer games, all tiers are considered somewhat equal for multiplayer situations due to balancing factors such as speed. Despite this fact, the three most widely used weapons in Rune multiplayer are the Dwarven Battleaxe, the Dwarven Battlehammer and the Dwarven Worksword - two tier 5 weapons and one tier 4.

Although rather linear, Ragnar does not need to kill everything in sight (common in games of the time) to travel from one level to the next. In some levels, players have found alternative ways of getting through to the next level. However, particular scripted pawns must be activated (killed, moved or tripped) in key zones to initiate certain actions to continue and move the story along.