The rain carves rivulets into your face as you maintain your sword out in entrance of you beneath flickering neon lights. Your opponent does the identical, each of you locked right into a lethal dance of loss of life that has but to start. Then, like lightning, you lash out, lunging with excellent intention into the guts of your foe. That’s what it feels prefer to play Die by the Blade, a model new 1v1 weapon-based preventing sport, and we received to present it a attempt at WASD Reside.
It’s truthful to say that Die by the Blade wears its influences clearly seen on its samuraipunk scabbard. For Honor looms massive within the rear view mirror whenever you dive into this upcoming preventing sport, as it will be with something the place two combatants face off in opposition to one another with lethal intent. Right here in Die by the Blade that comparability runs somewhat deeper.
“The stance mechanics are actually much like For Honor’s,” developer Triple Hill Interactive tells us at WASD Reside. As you stare down your foe you’ll have the ability to shift stances, after they match your opponent it’ll act as a guard in opposition to their assaults. This implies fight turns into a violent sport of rock, paper, scissors as you attempt to mind-game your means into not solely guessing what stance they’ll be utilizing, however performing to idiot them into slipping into the incorrect one so you may assault. There are additionally evasion mechanics and an vitality system, permitting you to dodge or carry out completely different sorts of assaults like horizontal or vertical strikes.
The place Die by the Blade units itself aside, nonetheless, is in the way it makes fight sudden and brutally lethal. “There’s no well being bar as a result of it’s a one-hit kill system,” the developer says, although you should have a number of lives that final your entire match so your duel isn’t over in seconds. That mentioned, the fight is extraordinarily violent, with a dismemberment system that actually separates the sport from its opponents. Violently.
If you play a sport of Die by the Blade you’ll not solely choose your character who’ll have sure strengths and weaknesses; you’ll additionally choose your weapon. It’s your weapons that kind the core of the sport, with each figuring out your type of fight and the way you’ll method every duel. “You’ll want to discover the stability between the character and the weapon that fits your playstyle,” the developer explains. “The katana is within the center and is the fundamental weapon, then you definitely’ve received the chokutō which is a one-handed weapon, and the wakizashi which might be a double wielded.” With completely different kinds of blades to select from and 7 characters to choose proper now, there’s positively scope for some critical build-crafting and optimization.
Die by the Blade will launch on Thursday, Might 16, and you’ll head over to Steam so as to add it to your wishlists now.
When you’d like to take a look at extra works from smaller groups, our information to the perfect indie video games will provide help to discover one thing you like, or if Die by the Blade’s samuraipunk aesthetic has you craving the long run, our greatest cyberpunk video games information will see you glad.
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Extra reporting by Nat Smith at WASD for PCGamesN.