On the Spike TV show Deadliest Warrior, experts would discuss the fighting techniques of famous soldiers throughout history, and debate which combatant would win if they were pitted against each other.
Now a Deadliest Warrior-informed expansion for the game Chivalry: Medieval Warfare will let PC players find out for themselves…WHO IS THE DEADLIEST WARRIOR! DUN DUN DUN!
Well, okay not now; the expansion isn’t out until the fall. But you get my point.
For those unfamiliar with Chivalry, which has been out for about a year, the game is an online-only, first-person, hack & slash action game that has knights going mano a mano with other knights.
But unlike many hack & slash action games, Chivalry is a bit more precise. When blocking —which you can do with shields or a weapon — you not only have to facing your attacker, but you have to be right in line with their attack and time it just right.
And there are similar mechanics for attacking. Aim wrong, for instance, and you may thrust your spear in the empty space between an enemy’s arm and side, instead of into their arm or side.
Not that you can go all nilly willy with the thrusting, anyway. Do it too much and you’ll run out of stamina, rendering you momentarily exhausted and open to attack. Thankfully, like your health, your stamina recharges rather quickly.
Though you do have multiple attacks with each weapon also varies. Swords, for example, will slash as a main attack, but spears will do more of a jabbing motion. Though each weapon also has multiple alternative attacks, which are mapped to the different mouse buttons and even the scroll wheel, with forward wheel motions doing different attacks than if you pull the wheel backwards.
You can even — when you don’t feel like slashing, jabbing, or blocking — kick your opponents, sending them reeling for a moment, a prime chance for you to bash in their heads.
What Chivalry: Deadliest Warrior brings to this brawler is variety. For starters, it expands the rosters beyond hot knight on knight action to also include Vikings, pirates, ninjas, Spartans, and samurai. All of these will also have their own historically unique weapons, which work here — more or less — like they do in the real world. A heavy melee weapon, for example, will be most effective against someone wearing heavy armor, but it will be slow moving.
The Deadliest Warrior expansion also adds new maps, one for each of the warriors, with the Spartan one adding a little nod to the movie 300. And while none of the characters will yell, “THIS! IS! SPARTA!” when you kick someone into the pit, characters can do battle cries. Just be careful when you do them, though, since while you can yell and run at the same time, if you bellow while standing or walking, you’ll stop and do nothing else until you’re done. Or someone kills you.
Having new characters also impacts how the different modes are played, since you can opt to play with factions or without. In the latter, you can have a team made up of, say, two knights, three pirates, a ninja, and a Spartan, or any combination of the six different warrior types. But in the faction-based versions of the modes, each team is the same type, which means you might be on an all-ninja team squaring off against a group that’s just Vikings.
Similarly, the new “Elimination” variation let’s you let’s you play such modes as “Team Deathmatch” but with just one life.
Even with all the additions that Deadliest Warrior is bringing to Chivalry, there is, the developers say, room for further expansion, with plans to listen to the community when it comes to deciding what kind of soldier could be added next (though they pointed out that, because of copyright laws and just plain common sense, you shouldn’t bother suggesting Jedi, Elvi, or Beavi).
Due out this fall, Chivalry: Deadliest Warrior will be $15 on Steam for just the expansion, with a bundle of it and the original Chivalry: Medieval Warfare (which is $24.99 on its own) in the planning stages but not priced yet.
For that info, and more, you can visit the expansion’s website.
