Chivalry meets QWOP in silly medieval combat sim with free Steam demo

pcgamesn.com:

Drawing inspiration from the likes of Chivalry, Mount and Blade, For Honor, and Mordhau, Half Sword is a ridiculous medieval combat sim filled with historically accurate weapons and armor. It’s gleefully silly, strikingly gory, and immediately, unquestionably a lot of fun. After blowing up online on social media platforms including TikTok, you can now play Half Sword yourself for free thanks to a new Steam demo.

Half Sword is, in the words of indie developer Half Sword Games, “an immersive, physically simulated medieval combat game that offers players a unique experience of becoming a commoner turned knight, fighting in brutal tournaments in 15th-Century Europe.” Playable as an FPS game or in third-person, Half Sword makes use of mouse controls to give you full control over how you swing your sword, axe, or even a candle stand in physics-led combat.

The controls are immediately very intuitive, and you’ll soon be staggering about the darkened demo space, which is laid out with various tables, each of which bears a selection of armor, weapons, and tools for you to equip. Enemy combatants will occasionally wander in with the darkness geared with their own random loadout, and it’s up to you to take them down.

By holding the right or left mouse button and moving your mouse, you get full control over either or both arms depending on your currently held items. You’ll quickly figure out how to start putting your tools to use, but successfully doing so in combat is another thing altogether. Bringing down one or two enemies isn’t too tough, but it’ll take quite some practice to handle the more well-equipped foes.

When I say that Half Sword is rather gruesome, that’s no exaggeration. I was rather shocked to find my first swing