Chivalry: Medieval Warfare

I like stuff with swords, naturally Chivalry: Medieval Warfare caught my eye. Originally starting as a somewhat rough around the edges Half Life 2 mod, Chivalry grew into a complete, polished product, due to funding through Kickstarter. Through their success, Torn Banner has created a fleshed out, multiplayer only, class based game, that centers its game play on very visceral, tactile melee combat. While the prospect of cutting down swathes of adversaries and lowly peasants seemed appealing, I knew to be wary, as the game is after all, multiplayer only and has a melee combat focus. While I tend to enjoy media that takes setting of high fantasy, or even real historical happening, a game needs to provide compelling game play in order to properly preserve my interest. Luckily, Chivalry has proven that it is capable of providing an experience that will not only keep you entertained, but also coming back time and time again to charge into battle, screaming with blood lust.

Now, if you knew me, you might realize that I tend to favor story or campaign modes in games over multiplayer. Who knows why, that’s just how I am. But somehow, even with my odd singleplayer affinity in mind, I seem to enjoy Chivalry quite a bit. There’s not much to be said about the story in Chivalry. A short tutorial is offered that, along with combat basics will provide you with some context as to what is going on in the world, but none of that seems to matter when you get into battle. Apparently there is some fictional rebellion taking place, and you are able to either fight for the red guys, or the blue guys. Doesn’t matter. To me at least. When you get down to it, the setting of Chivalry is simply what allows the game to set up large, bloody battles, with sword on sword combat. What I have found, is that while there is not much to speak of in terms of storytelling, the game play creates enough emergent experience to satiate any desire for expansion on plot. In fact, it can sometimes be the setting itself that makes available the perspective required to attain investment in the world, that is to say, I don’t really need a reason to storm a castle a with 31 other dudes because I AM STORMING A CASTLE WITH 31 DUDES. That’s cool.

It is such a setting that also provides context for some crazy cool locations to fight in, maps are extremely memorable both aesthetically and in layout. From a foggy, forest fort, to a looming temple carved into the side of a volcano, you will fight in some fantastically rendered scenes that provide magnificent backdrop to the equally awesome battles raging on throughout the map. It is also worth noting that Chivalry runs on Unreal Engine 3, and utilizes it very well, all of the textures and animations look great, and the game runs smoothly at all quality settings, even on my subpar PC setup. Whatever Chivalry lacks in story and connection to the world, it makes up for it with fantastic connection to location through its stunning graphical quality.

Ah the game play, yes the game play. Chivalry has fantastic game play. The game can be viewed in either first, or third person perspective, and uses a very simple set of controls that provide endless amounts of depth, and options for differing game play styles. Four classes are made available, each with their own vast set of unlockable weapons and accessories, there is the Vanguard, a heavy class that utilizes reach weapons, the Knight, a slower, more tank-like class, the Man-at-Arms, a light class that uses speed as a weapon, and the Archer class, the only one with primary ranged weapons. All of the classes are extremely unique in their play style, along with being easy to learn and difficult to master. Weapons are unlocked through kills, and all accessories, such as firebombs or throwing knives are open for use immediately. I assure you that there are plenty of weapons to keep you busy, as I myself have played for over 25 hours and have still not yet unlocked all of them. As for the combat mechanics, well I hate to compare them to a game like Dark Souls, as some unfair assumptions may be made, but alas, I must. The combat in Chivalry is very similar to combat in Dark Souls as every single move you make is deliberate, and crucial in your survival. It may be more fitting to relate to game such as Mount and Blade, although I may be clinging to that comparison due to similarity in setting. Nevertheless, you attack with the left mouse button and the scroll-wheel, you kick with F, you can feign an attack with Q, and block with the right mouse button. It seems simple right? Wrong. Seeing as all of the classes are so diverse in the way they move and fight, your style of play must constantly change and adapt in response to your situation. A skilled player can take down many adversaries with simple kicks and dodges timed correctly, it’s all skill based, and that’s what makes the combat so appealing. However, while the combat is tuned to great detail, there seems to be some minor balancing issues with a few of the weapons, knifes seem to have almost no reach, and some short swords seem to not deal an ordinate amount of damage. While there are a few inconsistencies, they can be worked around albeit begrudgingly. Other than the main mechanics, there is a battle cry button, which is also very cool.

Other than a few errors in balancing, and the game play being a bit difficult to jump into, there is not much I can say in the way of disappointment. While my appreciation of Chivalry’s successes far outweighs the discontentment that arises due to its shortcomings, I still find that aspects of the game could have been polished more so. There have been more than a few server-side network errors that have popped up mid match, team balancing often seems a bit off, the game has lost mouse signal multiple times for no apparent reasons, and while there is controller support I would consider the controls to be mapped somewhat poorly. While these may seem like nitpicky complaints, they are complaints nonetheless, and thus must be addressed.

While I can’t speak for everyone, I will say that even if you do not typically enjoy multiplayer games, this one is worth trying out. Yes, there may be some minor setbacks that come inherently with a multiplayer game, but you’ll find yourself looking past those setbacks in the presence of beautiful visuals, and fantastic game play. There is nothing quite like Chivalry: Medieval Warfare out there, whether you are pillaging a peasant town, or dueling with a skilled adversary, there is fun to be had in this crazy hack-and-slash online experience.