“Chivalry” has never been huge on my radar. It’s a game that I faintly know about, but I never investigated. It showed up on Steam pages and a few mentions on Twitter, but not being a fan of medieval warfare, I scrolled past it intent on examining more familiar and higher profile games.
To be frank, it was beyond my comfort zone, but when I had a chance to play the “Chivalry II” beta that featured 64-player combat, fireworks went off. The experience was surprisingly fun. The sword play had depth and the scrums were chaotic but felt true to world. It made me feel like an extra in “Braveheart.” How did I miss this for so long?
“”When we look back at ‘Chivalry’ and why it succeeded, it hit the right balance with the right sword mechanics and the Monty Python humor,” said Steve Piggott, president at Torn Banner Studios. “It’s a game with swords where you can scream your head off.”
The original game came out in 2012 and the developers at Torn Banner wanted to get back to it when they had enough time to create a “true sequel.” Piggott said they used the “Game of Thrones” scene of Jon Snow in the Battle of Bastards as touchstone, and they wanted to address the shortcomings of the first project.
A COMPELLING PREMISEFor the uninitiated, think of “Chivalry II” as a “Battlefield” game but instead of pistols and rifles, players fight swords, spears and axes. The developers said it blends the first-person shooter and fighting game genre, and that’s true. Players can get by mashing buttons for a few encounters, but experts stand out in a skirmish.
They know how to block, parry and riposte. They can overhead slash an opponent and lean into a swing so that they can strike before an opponent tries to counterattack. The combat relies on reading an opponent and quickly reacting. Before an enemy can strike, players can kick him to interrupt an attack and thrust a sword forward to do damage.
Masters can hold their own against several opponents, but similar to a real life scrum, they can’t hold off an enemy indefinitely. Players can’t guard forever because their stamina goes down, and when facing enemies in front, it leaves open the possibility of an attack from behind.
“Chivalry II” has a “Bushido Blade” vibe in that an opportunistic attack can kill instantly. It can also at the very least chop off a limb. Yes in “Chivalry II,” players can fight with a missing arm and call it a flesh wound. If they’re desperate, they can even throw their main weapon, but that would leave players nearly defenseless with just a knife.
MAPS HAVE DISTINCT RULE SETSI played through three maps and two rule sets in the “Chivalry II” demo. The first was The Siege of Rudhelm, an objective based map where one team defends a castle and heir while the opposing teams battle to assassinate the leader. On one side, it’s the Mason Order trying to attack the keep while the Agatha Knights play defense. The battle starts with the Mason Order trying to bring siege towers to the wall so the red team can bypass the walls.
The objective-based mission takes players from defending outside the castle walls to battling over the gatehouse. The objective takes into account how many teammates occupy key points. If one team occupies the key point for a long time, they capture it and move ahead. In one of the maps, as a defender, we kept losing and falling back. We went from the gatehouse to the tents to finally several squares until the team had to protect the heir. That turns out to be a real player who is chosen based on performance.
We were pushed back until we were at the keep and inside players found new and interesting ways to kill each other. A player took advantage of the unlimited supply of arrows and used that to fill their quiver and snipe at people from the second floor. Other teammates put makeshift obstacles to block the way. Unfortunately, it wasn’t strong enough to handle the waves on enemies crashing through.
In battle, “Chivalry II” lets players use almost anything as a weapon. Players can attack each other with brooms or barrels. They can even pick up weapons that end up on the ground during combat. In some places, players can even come across giant ballistas that spear foes for an instant kill.
A MORE DETAILED ENVIRONMENTOne of the highlights of “Chivalry II” is the interactive environments. That showed up at Tournament Grounds. I ran across a jousting dummy that swings around and knocks players down if they aren’t careful. In the Siege of Rudhelm, players can use a trap door that instantly kills friend or foe if they’re standing on it.
With eight maps at launch, players will have plenty of content to explore and test out initially. So far, Torn Banner has developed Team Objective, Free-For-All and Team Deathmatch.
The third option is what we encounters in Waldenglade, the third map we saw. It’s a mostly flat area with a few hills dotting the map. The battles here came in waves as player just ran at each other with no place to hide. The best position to have is on the hills. Players have the advantage of the high ground and they can even leap over their enemies with a well-timed jump and attack opponents from behind.
In my brief time with the game, I mainly stuck with the footman and leveled it up high enough to unlock new classes and weapons. I dabbled with the Knight, but I wasn’t able to get to the Skirmisher, which has the axes and tanky classes, I also tried the archer once but quickly died when I ran out of arrows.
Although the prospect of a fire-person melee game sounds intimidating, it worked surprisingly well and was easy enough to pick after the tutorial. Of course, it will take longer to gain expertise, but in the meantime, getting practical experience in the fire of battle is a quick way to gain competency with the controls and concepts. Players can get a start on the learning process when “Chivalry II” releases June 8 on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series S|X and Xbox One. The game also features crossplay so that players on different consoles can jump into a match together.
