As someone who’s already burned an admittedly slightly embarrassing number of hours wandering through the Wyrd-soaked wilderness and arguing with cultists in Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon, the new DLC called Sanctuary of Sarras is exactly what I needed – and feels like the bit of the map that I was missing, somewhat.
For everyone wondering, if this is some tiny side quest sloppily bolted onto Act III, we can calm your nerves – it’s really anything but. We can understand your scepticism, considering we didn’t exactly get showered with good expansion packs in the last 10 years, but the lost city of Sarras and the deserters who dared to spit in King Arthur’s face are precisely what I wanted from a DLC for Tainted Grail.
So in our books, if you were waiting for the right moment to put those grimy boots back on, this is your chance, because it seems to us that waiting for a complete version of Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon is now over. Sanctuary of Sarras, plus the 1.15 patch, is that moment you’ve been waiting for, and we’re here to tell you why – because we’re nice like that.
Sanctuary of Sarras Is A Drowned Secret Waiting to Be Uncovered
So what is Sanctuary of Sarras all about? Well, first of all, it’s the first full-sized expansion for the main game Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon, and it’s out now on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S. And yes, it’s paid DLC, but this isn’t some cosmetic update or something you could fit on a floppy disk of old – it’s a substantial 10-15 hour add-on, also like the good old days, we’d argue.
Lore-wise, as you can imagine, there’s a lot to contend with. For starters, Sarras and its rebel crew have been the subject of numerous rumors for about 600 years, being deserters who challenged Arthur himself and inevitably paid the ultimate price when Merlin got involved – if that doesn’t perk up your ears, we don’t know what will. In and of itself, if you’re waiting for Bioshock 4 being released, this is as good a place as any to plunge into another dystopian underwater mystery.
The expansion finally lets you dig into what actually happened, with a brand-new storyline following Nimue and the rebels’ trails into a long-lost sanctuary. The new area is exactly what you’d expect from the game’s art team, too, and the words underwater ruins are magnificently haunting, feeling like Rapture got thrown into Arthurian legend.
Deep-sea exploration of ancient ruins? Sign us up! Stone halls are choked by barnacles and algae, half-drowned streets, ancient structures, the whole shabang. And what’s weird about all that is that it still somewhat feels like Avalon, but filtered through an underwater nightmare which you will have to escape from – after you’ve learned everything you need to know, and solved the mystery at hand, of course.
How Does Sanctuary of Sarras Fit Into Your Next Tainted Grail Playthrough?
Thankfully, Sanctuary of Sarras isn’t some slapped-on story, so it’s fully integrated into a normal run – a bit like Gothic II did it with Night of the Raven, only a bit more streamlined, perhaps. You access the story partway through the campaign, and once you’ve hit Act II, you’ll find the new entrance tied to the Sarras myth.
For us, that feels like a smart call, because early game you’re definitely too weak and will get your butt handed to you, and late-game might be a bit too underwhelming. So, if you’re mid-playthrough already, you can just pick up your save and head down there for your next underwater adventure.
From a pacing perspective, Sarras works like a big, self-contained chapter in the middle of the story, with its own new progression system (more on that later), which is appreciated. You step away from the politics and plagues of the surface, dig through this submerged mystery, then come back to Avalon older and a tad weirder. But what about progression in this DLC?
Sanctuary of Sarras’ New Progression System Is Fantastic
Now, this is the clever bit – Sanctuary of Sarras messes with the usual Tainted Grail progression in an expectedly weird, but at the same time, pretty cool way. The expansion doesn’t just throw tougher enemies at you; it literally rewires how your character grows while you’re down there, and the progression system reflects that.
One thing right off the bat, the mysterious underwater region uses enemy level scaling, so whatever level you arrive at, fights stay tense. On top of that, Sarras is dotted with sacred shrines. Every time you activate one, it weakens the local enemies a little and gives you points to sink into three brand-new skill trees unique to the expansion.
The twist? You can only have one of those trees active at a time, and you can swap between them on the fly. In practice, that means you might run a more defensive tree while exploring, flip to a high-risk, high-damage tree for a boss, then switch again for sneaky exploration or spell-heavy builds, which is something Tainted Grail was lacking – until now.
If you’ve already squeezed most of the juice out of the base game’s talents, this system feels like someone just handed you a fresh mini-class system to dig into, and we’re digging it too, suffice it to say. It rewards experimenting instead of sticking with one safe cookie-cutter build all the way through, especially if you went down the path of magic. This is meaningful DLC content we wish more games would dare to do!
Who Is Sanctuary of Sarras For?
If you’re a first-time player who thought it wise to play Tainted Grail in its best state so far, we’d recommend you play at least Act I to completion, so you actually understand why everyone talks about the Wyrdness, what it actually even is, and why Arther might deserve to be challenged – or listened to. Once you start Act II, you can safely do a little dip into Sarras and treat it as a big, self-contained side arc.
Returning player? Well, this is where Sarras shines, because it’s challenging, true, but it respects your time and gives you reason to re-engage with systems you might’ve shelved after you played through Tainted Grail already. The new skill trees and the loot are interesting enough that it doesn’t just feel like the same, but, you know – wetter.
The best compliment we can give it as someone who adores the base game is this: Once you know Sanctuary of Sarras exists, it’s kind of hard playing Tainted Grail without it, especially since it plugs a lore gap that was kind of hard to ignore. It makes your builds more flexible, deepens the core gameplay, and, last but not least, adds another layer of horror the surface world only ever hinted at – in summary, it really is brilliant.
If you liked the base game, the expansion is absolutely worth your time; heck, it’s worth experiencing the whole game again, considering patch 1.15 made everything a whole lot better – even ACT III. What are you waiting for, again? Play it. Do it now.
