Spectral Knights are the ghostly manifestations of the legendary Knights of the Round Table that Gwendolyn summons through the mysterious gray fog that followed the fall of London. They fight alongside her using the Dual Frontline Battle System, and they are the single most important mechanic that separates Tides of Annihilation from other action adventure games built around a lone protagonist. Over ten Spectral Knights are unlockable throughout the game, each with a distinct fighting style, weapon, and elemental power.
Origin
Every Spectral Knight in the roster is the soul of a knight who once served at Avalon's Round Table in the era the game draws from Arthurian legend. Their bodies were lost long before the events of the game, but their spirits endure in the gray fog that rolls out of the folded realm. When Gwendolyn reaches a summoning threshold with one of these spirits, she pulls its ghostly form through the fog and into the fight.
The developers have deliberately built the roster around lesser-known figures rather than defaulting to Arthur, Lancelot, and Guinevere. Sir Lamorak and Palamedes are both deep cuts from the Arthurian canon, and the game treats them as fully realised combat companions rather than background references. The idea is to give the player time with knights who have rarely had the spotlight in other adaptations.
How Gwendolyn Summons Them
Summoning a Spectral Knight is not a one time cutscene. Gwendolyn can call a knight into the fight, dismiss them, and call a different one during the same encounter, all without interrupting the flow of combat. The gray fog is the conduit. As long as the fog is present around a fight, the knight Gwendolyn has bound to her can appear at her side on command.
The player builds a team of four knights ahead of a fight, organised into two pairs. Each pair holds a primary knight, who shapes Gwendolyn's own offence and carries the bulk of the moveset, and a secondary knight, who is called in for one specific job. Swapping between pairs is instantaneous, which means the player can bring a different combination of elements and fighting styles into a single encounter. Because the swap is free, teams are usually built around synergies rather than a single best knight, and the roster rewards experimentation.
Role in the Dual Frontline Battle
The Spectral Knights are the reason the Dual Frontline Battle System is called dual in the first place. Gwendolyn handles the physical battlefield in the real world, and at the same time a bonded knight can be fighting inside the Mirror Space and the folded realm that runs parallel to it. The player is not watching one of the two fighters as a passive ally. The game gives the player direct control over both sides of the line at the same time, with the knight taking the threats that exist only in the folded layer while Gwendolyn handles the ones rooted.
During showcased boss fights, this split has been used to solve puzzles a single protagonist could not solve. A knight can break a mirror barrier from inside the folded realm while Gwendolyn keeps a shapeshifting enemy's attention outside it. A knight can parry a boss hit that Gwendolyn would not survive. Both sides of the fight are real, and both can take damage, so the player has to think about two simultaneous health pools rather than one.
Partnered State
On top of the dual control system, Gwendolyn can enter a Partnered State with a specific knight. In this state, her own moveset picks up extensions driven by the partner. When she dodges, the knight carries her across a wider distance. When she attacks, the knight joins the string with moves of its own. Special attacks and combos that are only possible in this partnered mode are the game's answer to the stylish finishing moves of older action titles.
Sir Lamorak is the most heavily demonstrated partner so far. With Lamorak active, her dodges turn into a hitched ride across the battlefield on his back, and her attacks arrive together with red electrical current and summoned lightning. Each knight's Partnered State is shaped around what that knight was known for, so the feel of the fight changes every time a different partner is in.
Known Spectral Knights
The official store description says the combat system lets the player command a band of over ten legendary knights, so the confirmed names below are a small slice of the full roster. The following knights have been confirmed in official trailers, the Xbox Partner Preview showing, and the pre-release gameplay demos. The first build the public could play was the Chengdu Playtest of 14 to 16 August 2026, and a hands-on demo is scheduled for gamescom 2026 from 26 to 30 August, which will be the first time the roster is playable outside China. The table below uses the detail that has been shown publicly and does not speculate on knights that have only been implied.
Knight | Weapon | Element | Signature Role |
|---|---|---|---|
Spear and lance | Red lightning and electricity | Primary partner knight. Imbues Gwendolyn's sword with electrical energy, extends her dodge distance, throws his lance to break barriers, and can parry attacks Gwendolyn cannot. | |
Sword | Orange flame | Fast strike knight. Engulfs himself in orange flames before launching rapid consecutive fiery attacks. Called in to break Gwendolyn free from enemy holds and to finish fights inside the folded realm. | |
Unnamed ice knight | Not yet confirmed | Ice | Launch and aerial specialist. Early footage shows ice attacks that send enemies into the air for aerial combos. The knight's identity has not been revealed. |
The August 2026 Demo Roster
The playtest build carried five knights, four of which could be equipped at once. This is the first time any part of the roster has been named with roles attached, and several of the descriptions below come from the game's producer rather than from footage.
Knight | Slot | Style | In combat | Outside combat |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Primary | Scythe and fire | A ground specialist with long, wide combo strings and unusually large area coverage, which makes standing and fighting comfortable. A gauge fills as the knight works, and spending it lands heavy damage on an enemy whose guard is already broken, with splash onto anything nearby. | Not reported | |
Primary | Wind | Raises Gwendolyn's dodge performance and suits hit and run play, with the strongest aerial presence of the five. Hits from its special moves stack feathers, and five stacks release a heavy blow. | Fires an arrow that strings a zipline across gaps, and shoots down suspended platforms | |
Secondary | Threat control | Scatters an enemy formation and then stays on the field for a while pulling aggro, buying Gwendolyn room to attack. Also closes distance with a short blink into a mid-range hit that keeps a combo going. | Not reported | |
Secondary | Time | Drops a clock effect that slows enemy attacks. The producer describes the result as turning an instant startup into one with roughly twenty frames of wind up, which is what opens the attack window. | Not reported | |
Primary or secondary | Charge and parry | As a primary, charged attacks that break an enemy's guard, at the cost of moving heavily. As a secondary, throws his weapon and grants Gwendolyn defence and a precise parry. Parrying and charging are his core mechanics in either slot. | Breaks through walls, lifts heavy objects, and sets them down where they can be climbed |
Because a set is a pair, the roster is meant to be read as combinations rather than as a ranking. Two examples came straight out of the hands-on sessions. Palamedes hits hard as a primary but moves heavily, so pairing him with Kay, whose time effect slows whatever is coming back, covers the weakness. The reverse also works: Bedivere adds heavy damage against an enemy whose guard is already broken, so sending Palamedes in first to break that guard turns two knights into one plan.
Some early hands-on write-ups rendered the wind knight's name differently. The producer's own account of the roster gives it as Gaheris, and that is the name this article uses.
The producer has been unusually direct about where the whole system came from. He has said he is not a strong action game player himself, found the genre's difficulty high, and built the knight order so that a player's output looks better than their raw execution and so that pressure can be answered with a plan instead of with reflexes. The demo roster reflects that: every knight covers a specific weakness rather than simply adding damage.
Colossal Knights
Not every Spectral Knight appears at human scale. A separate class of summon known as Colossal Knights towers over the battlefield at turret scale, tall enough to reshape a fight by their presence alone. The enormous armoured figures seen roaming parts of Greater London in trailers are this class, and they are not only scenery. Some of the game's set piece encounters involve fighting a rival Colossal Knight, scaling up its massive form to reach a weak point, or summoning a friendly one of comparable size to counter an Avalonian threat.
The Colossal Knights use the same bond and summon logic as their human scale counterparts, with the difference being the tactical space they occupy. Where a normal Spectral Knight fights the folded realm threats next to Gwendolyn, a Colossal Knight dictates the geometry of the whole battlefield. The Colossal Knights were not part of the August 2026 playtest build. Attendees reported that those fights were present in the game's plans but not available to try.
Customisation and Progression
Each knight's moveset is customisable. Through the Skill Tree and Progression system, the player can invest in a knight's abilities to change how they behave in a combo, change which elemental imbues they grant to Gwendolyn's weapons, and unlock partnered synergies unique to that knight. The result is that two players running the same four knights can still build very different teams.
Modifications like elemental imbues or partnered synergies are intentionally shaped around each knight's own identity. Lamorak's branch leans into lightning and agility. Palamedes's branch leans into flame and fast chained strikes. The roster is not designed to be balanced around one optimal choice; it is designed to reward the player for identifying which knights suit their own weapon preferences and the encounter they are about to fight.
Visual Design
Visually, the Spectral Knights are translucent rather than fully solid. They carry the colour of their element through their armour, so Lamorak glows with a red electrical tone, Palamedes with an orange flame, and the ice knight with a pale blue. The ghostly silhouette is intentional. The developers wanted the knights to feel present and weighty in a fight without losing the fact that they are souls pulled through the fog.
The armour designs themselves draw from medieval plate rather than fantasy embellishment, in keeping with the game's grounded take on the Arthurian source material. Where the modern London setting gives the real world side of the fight a contemporary edge, the knights bring the medieval reference forward into the same frame whenever they are summoned.
Related Topics
Gwendolyn is the sole protagonist and the only character who can summon and bond with the Spectral Knights.
Dual Frontline Battle System is the combat framework that the knights make possible.
Partnered State is the mode in which Gwendolyn and a single knight share a moveset.
Colossal Knights are the oversized variants of Spectral Knights used in set piece encounters.
Sir Lamorak is the lead partner knight showcased throughout the gameplay reveals.
Knights of the Round Table covers the wider Arthurian context the roster is drawn from.
Mirror Space and the folded realm is the second battlefield the knights fight on.
Avalon is the mythical origin of the knights' souls.
Skill Tree and Progression is how each knight's kit is customised over time.
Chengdu Playtest was the first build in which any of the roster was playable, and is where the five demo knights were named.