A loud bang deafens me. I see rubble falling around me as the walls shake from the impact. The falling debris narrowly misses me as I run out onto the battlefield. I am quickly surrounded by enemy soldiers. I raise my sword and take about half of them down before I hear something to the side of me. I turn to see that a balista bolt is flying straight at me.
The Warchief of the Blackstone Legion, Apollyon, admires the warring factions and when she sees that they’re close to creating peace she manipulates the leaders into a new fight. There is a story mode which is split up into three main story arcs. The Knights, Vikings and Samurai and within each story there are chapters that you play through that teach you the mechanics of the game. I did enjoy the story and it helped me get ready for playing multiplayer. However, I am disappointed that they didn’t add a new story arc when the Wu Lin characters were introduced.
At the moment there are 23 playable characters and another three confirmed to be released in 2019. They are four types of character including: Heavy, Assassin, Vanguard, and Hybrid all of which have different stats. One thing that I really like is that liked was that in a 4v4 you didn’t need to have one of each type. You can play as any character you want and still be effective against all the others.
You can choose a faction to fight for but even if you choose Knight you can still play any of the other faction’s characters. As you play multiplayer matches you gain troops to deploy that raise the points for your faction. Every few months a faction wins the Faction War and they get rewarded with shield boarders, steel and crates. However, I feel like there isn’t enough emphasis on the Faction War and the rewards for months worth of work just doesn’t feel like it was worth the effort.
There is a good selection of multiplayer game modes ranging from 1v1, 2v2, and 4v4 with some of them having multiple game modes within them. There are also temporary game modes added during events that can be really fun to play. I like the amount of game modes and how different they feel from each other to keep me playing the game for months without getting bored. There are also a lot of maps that are available for each mode and the detail added to each map is makes it very immersive and feel realistic.
My main problem with the game is that it is a full priced game with micro transactions included. This involves the purchase of steel to buy effects, executions, characters and more. There has also been three DLC packs each about £25 that give you access to characters straight away among other game features like steel and effects. You can buy every character with in game currency so the DLC packs don’t bother me as much and with the amount of work that goes into creating the character and their weapons I feel like it is not too overpriced.
It did take me a long while to get used to the play style of the game because of the directional controls to attack and defend. It was also a challenge to learn a characters moveset but once I figured it out and was able to put up a fight I started to really enjoy the game and played it constantly for months. I like collecting things in games and as you level your character up you unlock the ability to find more gear sets and this really kept me hooked to playing characters. One main problem for me was people ganging up in PvP. However, the game has a PvAI option that I regularly play and I am able to have a proper fight now. The AI are quite intelligent and can use their moveset well enough to put up a good fight.
GameCritUK 