Intro to playing Game of Thrones: Beyond the Wall

Game of Thrones: Beyond the Wall, a mobile strategy RPG from Behaviour Interactive GAEA. Set decades before HBO’s show, the game finds you in charge of the Night’s Watch, sending your units into mysterious northern lands to fight wildlings, ferocious beasts, and worse.

There’s quite a bit to this free-to-play game. If you’re interested, we’ve put together a little guide to get you going.

When not in battle, you’ll be managing things at Castle Black, which is a hub for everything you can do in the game.

Image: Game of Thrones: Beyond the Wall/Behaviour Interactive/GAEA

There are a lot of options here:

• Beyond the Wall — This is the game’s main story mode.
• Barracks — Visit the barracks to level up your units and improve their gear.
• Challenges — This, on the other hand, doesn’t advance the story, but it does present you with unique hurdles that test your abilities.
• Codex — Go here to replay parts of the story or learn details about different units.
• Legendary Events — These are special maps where you can gain access to special units called Heroes, which include lots of characters you’ll recognize from Game of Thrones.
• Hearth — This is where your heroes hang out. Tap them to power them or see what you need to unlock more.
• Hero Arena — After you reach Level 20, you can come here to fight against other players.
• The Lodge — From here, you can send out ravens and recruiters to find units from specific regions of Westeros, from the Westerlands to the Vale to Dorne. The more you recruit from a certain region, the better the potential rewards.
• Merchant — He sells you items. You probably could have guess that.

Obviously, “Beyond the Wall” is where you’ll be spending the bulk of Beyond the Wall. Again, the game is a strategy RPG, meaning you’ll select your units and then use them to fight against opponents on a grid, like this:

Image: Game of Thrones: Beyond the Wall/Behaviour Interactive/GAEA

Blue squares show where you can move, red squares where you can attack. First, you choose what you want your units to do, then the enemy goes, and you keep at it until one side emerges the victor.

Different units can do different things. For example, archers can hit units that are further away, mounted units can move farther and units with heavy weapons can do lots of damage. Be mindful of which of your units you send against which enemies, because if you don’t take them down, they may be allowed to counterattack. Then there are the Heroes, who have special skills.

As mentioned, you can recruit Heroes in the Legendary Events section. The in-world explanation is that you use weirwoods to peer into the future and then draft these character into your squad. Does that 100% jibe with the lore? Not really, but you will get Jon Snow on your team, so…

Image: Game of Thrones: Beyond the Wall

Heroes and normal units control the same in battle, although they develop differently outside of it. Heroes progress along a skill tree, while you improve units by upgrading their equipment. For that, you need materials, much of which you get after fights.

But you have to win first. The game limits the number of Heroes and units you can send out at a time, meaning you’ll have to have a mix of both; you can’t just have all Heroes all the time. Surviving beyond the Wall is a team effort. Also keep in mind that units from the same region may give each other buffs and boosts.

Also, pay close attention to the victory conditions of each battle, because not every fight shakes down to ‘Kill all the enemies.’ That said, it usually always pays to not lose any units in a fight. To help keep your units safe, you can have them hide behind objects on the board. You can also tap the ‘Danger Zone’ button to see all the squares on the board that enemies can reach in their next turn; keep your units out of that zone and they’ll be safe.

On the other hand, if you know you’re vastly more powerful than a group of enemies, you can speed up battles by hitting the ‘AUTO’ button and letting the AI control your team, then hitting the fast-forward button so the whole thing flies by. And you can always take back control if you want.

Now, as this is a free-to-play game, there’s a lot of different kinds of currency involved. Take a gander:

• Copper Penny: Use these to level up Heroes and normal units both, upgrade buildings and buy items from the Merchant.
• Silver Stag: These can net you even better items, and can sometimes be used for character draws.
• Gold Dragon: These very rare coins can buy you items in special purchase events.

Then there are carved glyphs, which you can use to make draws for new characters; you can but them from the merchant for 300 Silver Stags apiece.

So how do you get your hands on money? One of the best ways is to completely Daily Quests, which reset every day; or get Achievements, which are goals you may find yourself completing in the course of normal play anyway. You can also find special weirwood adventures beyond the Wall that pay well.

Image: Game of Thrones: Beyond the Wall/Behaviour Interactive/GAEA

And that should be more than enough to get you going! Game of Thrones: Beyond the Wall is available for download on Android and iOS platforms now!

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h/t Gamezebo, Android Central