King of Cards Is a Fitting Goodbye to Shovel Knight

After three years with Shovel Knight, playing as the king of Pridemoor Keep feels like a perfect ending.

By Andrew Goldfarb

I love Shovel Knight. I’ve played through the main campaign at least half a dozen times across Wii U, 3DS, and Switch, and I absolutely adore the Plague Knight and Specter Knight campaigns that followed. After three years with the game, knowing the final campaign is coming makes it hard to say goodbye, but after some time playing it at PAX West, I’m glad to see that developer Yacht Club Games is making sure to go out with a bang.

King of Cards, the last bonus campaign promised as a stretch goal in Shovel Knight’s original Kickstarter, introduces King Knight as a playable character. As in the other boss campaigns, King Knight has a completely new moveset and different skills than Shovel Knight, including a bash attack called King’s Shoulder (though Yacht Club says that name is subject to change).

King Knight uses his bash to mow down enemies as you’d expect, but as with other playable Shovel Knight bosses, his attack also serves as his main method of mobility. Each time your bash successfully connects with an enemy, wall, or object, King Knight will switch into a downward vertical attack similar to Shovel Knight’s shovel drop. This means that rather than wall jumping like Specter Knight or bursting into the air like Plague Knight, King Knight’s movement is actually most similar to Shovel Knight’s in the original campaign, as you’ll bounce upward off of objects in order to get to higher areas.

If you’re unlucky enough to fall into a pit, King Knight also has an automatic recovery. When you fall, a propeller rat will automatically appear to lift you into the air to give you a second chance to make the jump.

Like Shovel Knight’s Relics, Plague Knight’s Arcana, and Specter Knight’s Curios, King Knight has Heirlooms that he can use for an additional attack or skill. The two unlocked in our demo were a Heart Hammer, which hits enemies at close range and recovers one of King Knight’s hearts, and Jouster, which sends a Blitzsteed (a horse with a jousting sword) straight in front of King Knight to hit enemies in its path.

Once again, Yacht Club has managed to make a new character’s moveset feel completely distinct, and while the controls felt totally comfortable and familiar after playing the other campaigns, King Knight’s skills are unique enough to make this like playing an entirely new game.

I’m going to miss Shovel Knight a lot when these add-ons stop, but I’m so excited to dive into another campaign, and with a new card battle mode and many new levels beyond what we were able to play at PAX, I have no doubt that King of Cards still has some surprises up its sleeve. King Knight is one of the first bosses you encounter in the original Shovel Knight, and it feels like a perfect bookend to play as him for the game’s swan song.

Andrew is IGN’s executive editor of news and is very excited to get those new Shovel Knight amiibo. You can find him rambling about Persona and cute animals on Twitter.

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