Blades of Fire Returns To Vampire Hunting Roots

Blades of Fire features an intense and immersive weapon-crafting system. I won’t spoil the plot for you, but here’s what you should know: The game is divided by the world, and the Forge. In the world, you travel from area to area, solving puzzles, collecting resources, and defeating enemies. In the Forge, you use the resources you collected to craft new weapons, with a dizzying array of customization options. A simple gameplay loop in theory, but in practice, players really feel as if they were a vampire hunter, that is, working your way through progressively more difficult enemies, exploring a vast map, collecting everything you see, solving puzzles, all to reach your singular goal. Kill the Big Bad.

You aren’t just crafting weapons to defeat enemies; each weapon you craft brings a new playstyle, true, but the crafting system means you are building your tools to beat down any enemy that crosses your path. Humans, trolls, undead, even elementals are just some of the enemies you’ll encounter as you bring the hammer down upon this land’s biggest threat.

The Rush of the Hunt, the Thrill of Tactical Domination

MercurySteam, the studio behind the upcoming title, has mastered the formula for their games, even though Blades of Fire plays differently than Lords of Shadow does, being somewhat slower and relying on soulslike mechanics, the overall structure hits the important beats without going stale. It has a variety of enemy types, each requiring a specific weapon type to be effective against, which brings you back to the Forge, which is where the loop hits its stride. It features a massive amount of enemies, but an even greater amount of crafting options, so you’re never feeling constrained.

One enemy might be weak against swords, and you collected enough iron and miscellaneous bits to craft a new weapon, and this time, you’re feeling like swinging a broadsword. Maybe you’re coming up on a group of enemies, and you feel like you need a two-handed hammer to make sure you won’t get surrounded, and as it happens you came across a new schematic earlier, and also want to test out what it’s when you spec into parrying more.

Or maybe you just want a weapon that looks cool to mow down the undead, and you just learned about flamberges. Form, function, or both, you need to choose how to handle each encounter in Blades of Fire, and buddy you’ve got options.

Final Thoughts

Blades of Fire is the best kind of collectathon, offering hours upon hours of tested and effective combat mechanics, a massive crafting system designed for one purpose and one purpose only. Make weapons of war to defeat this game’s Big Bad, and I look forward to playing it on release, May 22nd.