The game's story follows Paul, a young Templar Knight who has been sent on a mission to uncover the evil conspiracy. An evil bishop has kidnapped Adelle, a mysterious young girl who has divine powers, and he wants to use her to perform dark rituals in Holy places to desecrate them and gain access to the Gates of Hell.
It's basically a bootleg Kingdom of Heaven with melee-oriented action combat like others at the time. It also has music by Within Temptation.
The game received a sequel a year later, titled Knights of the Temple II. It was developed by Cauldron, published by Playlogic Entertainment, and released on the same platforms as the original besides GameCube, due to the poor performance of the original there.
Knights of the Temple: Infernal Crusade contains examples of the following tropes:
- Badass Preacher: The very first enemies that you encounter in the game are monks armed with knives.
- Beauty Equals Goodness: Adelle is very beautiful, and she is the purest and most innocent character in the game. She is the one who through her divine powers, guides Paul through his quest to stop the Bishop.
- Black-and-White Morality: The player is a young noble Templar Knight, while the Big Bad is a Satan-worshipping fanatic.
- Carpet of Virility: The shirtless executioner (first boss in the game) has hair on his chest.
- Christianity is Catholic: Justified since the game takes place in medieval times, a few centuries before the Reformation.
- Disney Villain Death: How Lord Bishop meets his end. Paul hits him with his weapon, and the Bishop falls down the hole and into hell.
- Equal-Opportunity Evil: Lord Bishop recruits both Christian Crusaders and Muslim Saracens into his cause.
- Final Boss: In the first game, it's the Bishop and in the sequel, it's Satan himself.
- Greater-Scope Villain: Satan doesn't show up at all in the first game, but his presence is implied, and the Bishop worships him, and wants to open Gates of Hell upon the world, with Satan presumably becoming the ruler of the world. In the second game, Satan becomes Big Bad and Final Boss.
- Holy City: Part of the game takes place in Jerusalem.
- Light Is Good: Paul, the protagonist, wears white Templar armor with the red cross.
- Light Is Not Good:
- The villainous Bishop wears white and gold ornate clothing.
- Hell Knight looks almost like a regular knight templar, except that he has an inverted cross on his white robe and inverted-cross-style plumed helmet.
- The Not-Love Interest:
- Adelle is stated to be Paul's childhood friend, and Paul's goal is to rescue her. However, there is not implication of any romance between them. This is understandable, because Paul is a Templar Knight who historically weren't allowed to have romances.
- Subverted in the sequel, where Paul and Adelle do in fact fall in love.
- Sinister Minister: Lord Bishop betrayed the Church and plans to release Hell upon the world. There are also monks in the beginning who attack Paul. They are implied to have been corrupted by the Bishop.
