Chivalry 2
Torn Banner Studios · Fighting, Action, Indie
Overview
Chivalry 2 is a multiplayer first person slasher inspired by epic medieval movie battles. Players are thrust into the action of every iconic moment of the era - from clashing swords, to storms of flaming arrows, to sprawling castle sieges and more.
THE GAMEQ VERDICT9,999 reviews analyzed
What players are actually saying
1. Summary
Players come back to Chivalry 2 for its melee combat and its battles. The fighting is easy to pick up and keeps revealing new layers (feints, counters, drags, jabs, kicks), and the 64-player sieges mix that depth with slapstick: thrown chickens, severed heads used as weapons, armless knights headbutting their way to a kill, voice lines and battle cries. Far more reviews describe the combat in positive terms than call it clunky or slow, and the chaos and humour come up in a fifth of the longer reviews.
Cheating is the complaint raised most often. Players describe people flying, speed hacking, stripping everyone's weapons and crashing servers when someone starts a vote kick. Newcomers say they are dropped into lobbies, and even the Training Grounds mode, full of level-1000 veterans with no skill-based matchmaking to protect them. Others mention a chat full of slurs, lag and missed hits, and a game that stopped receiving content. Long-time players write most of the complaints about cheating and abandonment, while the stories of being farmed by veterans tend to come from people describing their first matches.
2. What keeps coming up
What players praise
Deep melee combat that rewards practiceHigh
Combat comes up in 23% of the longer reviews, and reviews that describe it in positive terms (12%) far outnumber those calling it clunky, slow or broken (2%). Players praise the weight of the weapons and the freedom of movement: "The game's core combat is exhilarating; attacks have tangible weight and the lack of a lock-on or stance allows for full freedom in movement during fights." Easy to learn and hard to master is a phrase that turns up in dozens of reviews: a held block keeps beginners alive while veterans win with feints, counters, accels and drags. One long-time player puts the balance this way: "Combat is well-designed to reward skill - the better player wins duels most of the time, but new players can survive long enough in fights to practice and learn."
Some critics are veterans of Chivalry 1 and Mordhau who find the system slower and more forgiving than they want. One of them writes that "Held block transforms what was a chess game at lightning speed into a boring, meter-drain waiting simulator." Others say inconsistent blocks and hit registration undercut the system (see the lag section below).
Chaotic, funny, cinematic battlesHigh
The humour, the chaos or the scale of the battles come up in 20% of the longer reviews. Players kill each other with bread, fish, chickens and severed limbs, spam battle cries and "yer mum" voice lines, and keep fighting after losing an arm, and several compare the tone to Monty Python. "This is not a game about swordsmanship, this is a game about being murdered in funnier and funnier ways." The objective maps get credit for staged moments such as storming a beach, pushing a siege engine or killing the enemy king in the final stage, and for making losses entertaining: "You always leave with a tale to tell." The same chaos also feeds the complaints about ganking and team damage, covered below.
Where players are split
The learning curve and skill ceilingMedium
For some of the 9.8% of longer reviews that discuss the learning curve, skill gap or skill ceiling, it is the reason to keep playing: "it's not your character that improves over time, it's YOU!" Estimates of how long it takes before fights click run from a few hours to a hundred, and reviewers recommend duel servers, YouTube guides or asking veterans for help. Others find the wall too high, and some admit it plainly: "It is absolutely a skill issue on my part." Much of this split comes down to who you are matched against (see the veterans section below).
Worth it on sale, not at full priceMedium
Price comes up in 9.1% of the longer reviews. Several dozen reviewers say they bought the game in a sale, some for a few dollars or euros, and call it a bargain at that price. A smaller group warns against paying full price for a game that is no longer updated: "Game is 8 dollars frequently, DO NOT BUY FOR FULL PRICE."
Cosmetics, customization and battle passesMedium
6.4% of the longer reviews discuss cosmetics, customization or monetization, and they pull in both directions. Supporters point out that weapons are unlocked by playing, that purchases are cosmetic, and that "The battle passes are retro active meaning you can grind out any battle pass at your pace!" Critics say customization is thinner than Mordhau's, that cosmetics are locked to one class of one faction ("if you have a weapon skin you love, you would have to buy that weapon skin four times"), that some looks sit behind paid campaigns, and that the third faction got few cosmetics. A few also find unlocking weapons for each class slow.
ArchersMedium
Much of the talk about archers (6.0% of the longer reviews) is a running joke: players hunt them, mock them and blame them for ruined duels. "Switched to knight and understood why everyone hates archers." People who play the class describe the opposite problem: slow arrows, small hitboxes, low damage and a long weapon swap, with one noting that "arrows go through opponents without doing damage quite frequently". Melee players feel archers and ballistas kill them without counterplay, while archers feel useless and get team-killed for picking the class.
Chivalry 2 versus MordhauMedium
5.3% of the longer reviews compare the game to Mordhau, and they split along what the reviewer wants. Fans of large team battles prefer Chivalry 2: "What Chivalry 2 has over Mordhau is vastly superior objective-based gameplay, better maps, and an exceptionally more accessible/balanced combat system." Several also say it has more players than Mordhau. Players who want competitive dueling and deep loadout or armour customization tend to prefer Mordhau and call Chivalry 2 simplified or arcade-like.
Is the game dead?Low
On the player count, the 3.3% of longer reviews that raise it disagree. Some report empty or half-full lobbies, bot-filled matches, and dead regions in Asia, South America, South Africa and Oceania. Others say lobbies fill fast: "Don't let the steam numbers fool you, this game is on every platform. You can always find a full server!"
What frustrates players
Cheaters who fly, speed hack and crash serversHigh
Cheating is raised in 17.1% of the longer reviews, more than any other complaint. Players describe blatant cheats (flying, no-clip, instant kills, removing everyone's weapons, flying siege weapons) and subtle ones (slightly faster swings, infinite stamina, automatic parries) that they say are harder to prove. Kicking a cheater often doesn't end it: "If you try to vote kick them out of the game they will just DDOS the server your in." Reviewers also say reports go nowhere.
The complaints come in waves. Counting every review written in a given month, 11-13% of those from October and November 2025 mentioned cheaters; mentions fell to 2-4% from December 2025 through March 2026, then rose to 14% in June 2026 and 11% in July 2026. A few reviewers tracked this in edits, first saying a patch had dealt with the hackers ("They actually listened to the players and fixed a lot of these issues. Good job, Torn Banner!") and later that "The hacks are back and worse than ever." Some players push back that "the negative reviews make it sound like it's every single match, which it isn't", and that accusations often target skilled veterans.
New players thrown in with level-1000 veteransHigh
12.5% of the longer reviews complain about matchmaking that ignores skill, many of them written by players describing their own first matches. They tell of facing max-level players straight away, arena duels against people hundreds of levels higher, and veterans farming kills in the Training Grounds mode meant for beginners: "Would be even better if Training Grounds was limited to level 100 players only". Players also note that the team balancer uses account level: "It matches players based on their in-game level, not their skill." Some enjoy the absence of ranked matchmaking and say it lets casual players drop in, and that "I like how you are put against players of high skill and not matchmaked by your skill because it encourages you to improve". Some newcomers, though, say they quit or refunded within their first few hours.
Toxic chat with little moderationMedium
9.7% of the longer reviews describe the chat as racist, homophobic or abusive; reviewers report slurs in most lobbies and say reporting changes nothing. Some advise turning chat off or muting players: "The ONLY issue is that game chat can get very toxic on pc, so I recommend ignoring it." Reviewers are divided on the community itself. Some find the unfiltered chat part of the fun, and others describe a helpful core of regulars: "If you're struggling with the combat, just ask for help in a full lobby, and I guarantee you'll get 5-10 people offering advice."
Lag, hit registration and disconnectsMedium
Swings that pass through enemies, blocks that fail, teleporting opponents, high ping in some regions, rubber-banding and "lost connection to host" errors: 8.9% of the longer reviews complain about netcode and servers, and a few single out the arena 1v1 and 3v3 modes. A Mordhau veteran who prefers Chivalry 2's combat still writes that "it's pretty painful to see just how many blocks, chambers, and hits don't register". Some players say server lag came and went with updates.
No new content or fixesMedium
8.5% of the longer reviews say the game has been left without updates. Reviewers repeat that the developers declared it "feature complete" and moved to another project, and they connect this to the cheating, the old bugs and the shrinking map rotation. These complaints come mostly from long-time players, many with hundreds of hours in the game. Others see a finished game that holds up anyway: "You know how TF2 is still fun all these years later even though there's no more new weapons being released because the gameplay is god tier?" A couple of reviewers note that holiday and weekly events still run, and some ask for a Chivalry 3.
Easy Anti-Cheat launch errors, crashes and stutterMedium
7.5% of the longer reviews describe the game failing to start or run well. A recurring report is an Easy Anti-Cheat error (30005) that blocked launch on updated Windows 11 machines for months, which players say could only be worked around by weakening system security: "The only solution is found on Reddit and the fix is turning off Memory integrity under the Windows security." A few reviewers later wrote that it works again, dating the fix to December 2025, though Steam Deck and Linux players report anti-cheat kicks after that. Others mention crashes, a frame freeze on every kill (some fixed it by moving the game to their main SSD), and low frame rates on certain maps. Players with these problems often have only a few hours played, and some refunded.
Vote kicks, team killing and gankingMedium
7.1% of the longer reviews complain about vote kicks, team damage or being swarmed. Players say the vote kick rarely removes cheaters or team-killers ("the vote kick requires 16 people to press K which NEVER happens"), yet they also say they were kicked for winning a duel, for being new or for fighting back against a team-killer. Being jumped by several enemies mid-duel is described as both part of the fun and a constant annoyance.
Playing with friends: parties, crossplay and paid private serversLow
4.0% of the longer reviews describe trouble playing with friends: invites that never arrive, cross-platform friend codes that fail (especially between PC and Xbox), no joining a friend's match in progress, and a small party cap: "Why is there lobbies for 64 players per server but god forbid you have more than 5 friends wanting to play on the same server." Private matches need a rented server, which reviewers find expensive: "No private servers unless you rent them from the devs."
Repetitive maps and rotating modesLow
3.3% of the longer reviews say the same few maps repeat, there is no map vote, and favourite modes come and go in rotation. Team Deathmatch and free-for-all leaving the playlist drew angry reactions: "THEY TOOK AWAY TEAM DEATH MATCH 4 DAYS AFTER BUYING THE GAME." Several ask for mod support or community maps to keep the rotation fresh.
Team stacking, autobalance and attacker-sided mapsLow
3.1% of the longer reviews complain about lopsided teams. Players say high-level players switch to the attacking side, most objective maps favour attackers, and the autobalancer moves players to the losing team late in a match. "I can predict how much fun I'll have based solely on which team I'm randomly assigned to at the start of the match."
No single-player or offline progressionLow
2.5% of the longer reviews want more to do outside public matches: a campaign or co-op PvE mode, bot matches with friends, harder bots, and progression in offline play. One newcomer notes that "you cannot level up in the AI modes at all".
3. The player conversation
Most positive reviews are a line or two ("peak", "sword go swing") or a joke about being killed by a chicken. The longer reviews are where the problems get listed: cheaters, veterans in beginner modes, chat, servers and the lack of updates. Some negative reviews open by praising the combat, and much of the disagreement is over whether the problems around the game outweigh it.
Who raises what differs. Complaints about abandonment and cheating come mostly from long-time players, some of whom call it a favourite game. Stories of level-1000 veterans in beginner modes often come from players describing their first matches, and anti-cheat launch failures from people who could barely play at all.
Month by month, the positive share of reviews moved with the cheating reports. Reviews written in October 2025 were 71% positive; from December 2025 through April 2026, when cheating mentions were at their lowest, they ran at 82-83%; June 2026 fell back to 72% as reports of weapon-stripping and server-crashing cheaters returned, and August through early October 2026 sat around 78%.
4. What the developers could do
- Close the server-crash and cheat exploits and act on reports. Cheating is the most frequent complaint, and because cheaters can crash a server to escape a vote kick, one player can ruin a whole lobby.
- Keep high-level players out of the beginner mode and match arena games by skill. Newcomers describe being farmed in the Training Grounds by max-level players and leaving within hours, and several ask for high-level players to be kept out of it.
- Keep Easy Anti-Cheat working on current Windows, Steam Deck and Linux setups. Players lost access for months to the 30005 error and were told to disable a Windows security feature, which a few refused to do.
- Give chat a working filter and reports that lead somewhere. Reviewers describe slurs in most lobbies and say they turn chat off entirely because reports change nothing.
- Improve server stability and hit registration. Missed hits, failed blocks and disconnects undermine the combat that players otherwise praise.
- Fix party invites, crossplay friend codes and joining friends mid-match, and allow free private matches. Groups of friends describe failing to get into the same game and having to rent a server to play privately.
- Limit team switching and late-match autobalancing. Players report attackers stacking with high-level players and being moved to the losing team minutes before the end.
- Open the game to community content and keep favourite modes in rotation. With no new content coming, reviewers ask for mod support, community maps, map voting and a permanent Team Deathmatch or free-for-all playlist.
