"Blades of Fire: Exclusive First Look"

When I sat down to play developer MercurySteam's latest project, Blades of Fire, I expected a return to the studio's Castlevania: Lords of Shadow roots, updated with the modern stylings of God of War. An hour into the game, I felt like I was playing a Soulslike, albeit one where all the stats were focused on weapons rather than an RPG character sheet. By the end of my three-hour hands-on session, I realized that both observations were simultaneously true and false: this game is built on familiar ground, yet the unique arrangement of its borrowed components and new ideas results in a fresh and interesting approach to the action-adventure genre.

While Blades of Fire isn't a direct clone of Sony Santa Monica's work, it's easy to see the similarities at first glance. The game features a dark fantasy world, heavy-hitting strikes, and a third-person camera that stays close to the action, reminiscent of Kratos' Norse adventures. There are even more parallels: during the demo, I explored a twisty, treasure chest-laden map with the help of a young companion who assisted in solving puzzles. Together, we sought out a woman of the wilds who lived in a house mounted atop a giant creature. The game can sometimes feel a bit too familiar, especially when you consider the elements borrowed from FromSoftware's library, such as anvil-shaped checkpoints that refill your limited health potions and respawn enemies when rested at.

The game's world has a distinct 1980s fantasy vibe. You can imagine Conan the Barbarian fitting right in among its buff soldiers, while orangutan-like enemies bouncing on bamboo pogo sticks wouldn't look out of place in Jim Henson's Labyrinth. The story also has a retro feel; an evil queen has turned steel into stone, and it's up to you – Aran de Lira, a blacksmith demigod – to kill her and restore the world's metal. Despite these old-school charms, I'm skeptical about the story, characters, and writing being compelling – it feels very video game-y, reminiscent of many forgotten Xbox 360 era tales.

Blades of Fire's strongest suit appears to be its mechanics. The combat system is rooted in directional attacks, utilizing every face button on the controller. On a PlayStation pad, tapping triangle targets the head, cross aims for the torso, while square and circle swipe left and right. By carefully reading an enemy's stance, you can break through their defenses. For example, a soldier holding up a blade to protect their face can be overcome by aiming low and skewering through their gut. The impact is satisfyingly visceral, with thick trails of blood erupting from the wounds you inflict.

The system truly shines in certain moments. The demo's first major boss, a slobbering troll, had a second health bar that could only be chipped away after dismembering the beast. The limb you lop off depends on your angle of attack, allowing you to use a right-hand strike to detach its club-swinging left arm, effectively disarming your foe. Even more intriguing, you can cut the troll's entire face off, leaving it blind and flailing until it regrows its eyes and resumes the fight.

Your weapons demand significant attention in Blades of Fire. Interesting wrinkles like this can be found in many combat staples. Unlike most games, your stamina gauge, which fuels attacks and dodges, must be manually restored by holding the block button. While these new ideas give Blades of Fire's combat a unique edge, the overall feel of battle remains undeniably Soulsian. Attack pattern recognition and narrow dodge/block/parry windows are key, with a sense of risk and reward – though the punishment isn't as severe. It's enough to trigger FromSoft muscle memory, but that won't save you here: the directional attack system requires a different control map, with blocking reassigned to the left trigger.

After rewiring my brain to remember that none of the face buttons can be used to dodge, the unique approaches began to take center stage over the Soulslike elements, and I found the combat to be refreshingly different. Core damage dealing is enhanced by a smart weapon system that allows you to wield your bladed armaments in different stances, either slashing with the sharp edge or thrusting with the pointed tip. As with the directional system, you'll need to assess your enemy and use HUD prompts to determine the most effective method.

Blades of Fire Screenshots

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If the title didn't give it away, your weapons are the heart of Blades of Fire. Edged weapons dull with repeated use, meaning each successive strike deals slightly less damage. This adds up over time, so you'll need to use a sharpening stone to replenish your weapon's blade or switch to a different stance, as the edge and tip wear down independently, contributing to the sense that these are tangible items affected by your fighting style.

As with Monster Hunter, you'll learn to make space to sharpen your sword mid-fight. However, every weapon has a durability meter that continually depletes, no matter how well you care for it. When your weapon inevitably shatters, you can repair it at an anvil checkpoint or melt it down into raw materials to begin crafting anew, which is undoubtedly Blades of Fire's most significant and distinguishing innovation: the forge.

To say MercurySteam has created an extensive weapon crafting system is an understatement. Rather than finding new armaments in the world, every weapon's life begins in the forge. It starts with choosing a basic weapon template, which Aran sketches out on a chalkboard. From here, you tweak and modify. For instance, when designing a spear, I adjusted the length of the pole and the shape of the spearhead. Each decision affects the weapon's stats; a longer pole increases the spear's range, while the shape of the head dictates its proficiency at slashing or piercing. Different materials affect weight, which in turn changes the weapon's demands on your stamina pool. All this lends the sense that you are genuinely crafting your weapon. You even get to name your creation.

Most crafting systems would end there, but in Blades of Fire, this is only the halfway point. With your design complete, you must physically hammer out the metal on an anvil. This is achieved via a remarkably involved minigame where you control the length, force, and angle of every hammer strike. A curved line across the screen represents the ideal shape, and with each blow of the hammer, you attempt to arrange a series of vertical bars, akin to a graphic equalizer, to match the shape of that curved line. Overworking the steel results in a weaker weapon, so the aim is to recreate that line in as few strikes as possible. Your efforts are rewarded with a star rating; the more stars you attain, the more often you can repair your creation before it permanently breaks and is lost forever.

I really love the idea of the forge and how it introduces a skill element to what is typically a menu-driven system. However, even after several sessions at the anvil, I found the minigame frustratingly obtuse. There didn't seem to be a clear connection between the areas I struck and the resulting shape of the metal. Hopefully, some improvements or a better tutorial will be implemented before launch – it would be a shame for Blades of Fire's most interesting feature to be marred by irritation.

The idea at the heart of the forge goes beyond the boundaries of a three-hour demo session. MercurySteam wants you to feel deeply attached to the weapons you create and carry them with you throughout your journey – a journey the developer claims will be "no less than 60-70 hours." As you explore the world and find new metals, you'll be able to reforge your trusted swords, axes, hammers, and spears to enhance their properties, ensuring they're always suitable for new and more difficult challenges. This relationship between you and your armaments is emphasized by the death system; upon defeat, you drop the weapon you were using and respawn without it.

It's unsurprising to see MercurySteam adopt multiple ideas from Dark Souls and its siblings. This is partly due to FromSoftware's seemingly irreversible impact on action games, but also because Blades of Fire is something of a spiritual successor to Blade of Darkness: a relic of the early 2000s, it was developed by MercurySteam's founding members and is considered (by its cult following, at least) to be a precursor to the Souls series. In many ways, those developers are simply picking up from where they left off, implementing the advancements made by other studios during their time away from the genre.

As I played, I could feel the gravitational pull of all of MercurySteam's apparent influences – the brutal combat of this project's decades-old predecessor, the innovations of FromSoft, and the world design of God of War. But as much as those ideas are clear to see, they fall short of defining the studio's latest work. Rather than crafting a Soulslike or a God of War-like, those firmly established systems have been reinterpreted as part of a larger canvas of ideas. Blades of Fire has a recipe of its own that successfully distances it from any of its obvious gaming touchstones.

I do have some misgivings – I'm unsure if this fairly generic dark fantasy world is up to the challenge of supporting a 60-hour adventure, and within three hours, I'd fought the same gatekeeping miniboss three times, which makes me question the variety on offer. But the demonstrated depth of relationship between your forged blades and the foes you face has me totally intrigued. In a time when complex and, frankly, obtuse games like Elden Ring and Monster Hunter have become mainstream hits, I think Blades of Fire has the potential to contribute something fascinating to the scene.