Half Sword
Half Sword Games · Fighting, Simulation, Action, Indie
Overview
Half Sword is a physics-based medieval combat simulator featuring historically accurate XV-century arms and armor. We are not afraid to show the brutal nature of medieval combat with in-depth blood and gore features.
THE GAMEQ VERDICT9,999 reviews analyzed
What players are actually saying
1. Summary
Half Sword's players love its combat. You swing a weapon by moving the mouse, aim a blow at a gap in the armor and let the physics decide the rest, and some reviewers say no other melee game feels like it. The gore, the weapon forge and the free sandbox mode add to that, and fans often call the game addictive. The most frequent complaints are technical: performance problems on busy maps (23% of longer reviews), bugs and physics glitches (16%) and crashes and fatal errors (15%). The Abyss, the zombie mode a dead character must survive to come back, comes up in 12% of longer reviews, and more than half of a hand-checked sample of those mentions were complaints. Players also say their own fighter breaks at a light tap while armored enemies shrug off clean hits.
Players broadly agree the combat is special and the technical state is rough, and they split on whether that adds up to a purchase. More than a third of longer negative reviews (37%) still call the game fun, say they love it or praise its potential. A group of reviewers says the free demo played better (11% of longer reviews), while a smaller group says the full game has since overtaken it. Another 5% of longer reviews say the game recovered from a poor launch or that they switched their review to positive, though crash reports continue through the whole period.
2. What keeps coming up
What players praise
Physics-driven combat that feels like a real fightHigh
Reviewers describe controlling each arm with the mouse, half-swording a blade against plate, wrestling, choking and throwing opponents, and fights that never play out the same way twice. "It gives me the feeling that I am actually fighting, instead of just pressing a button," one wrote, and another said "The freedom of how you approach combat is genuinely unmatched, button mashing doesn't work here." Several historical fencing fans and HEMA practitioners praise the real techniques the game lets them try. The same physics that make a clean strike feel earned also produce the glitches covered in the frustrations below, and some fans count that jank as part of the fun.
Gore and brutal dismembermentMedium
Gore comes up in 8% of longer reviews, usually as a selling point. Players enjoy dented helmets, severed limbs and enemies who beg for mercy, and one called it "Some of the best gore i've seen in a game without a doubt." A few demo players say the full game's blood looks weaker than the demo's. Reviewers also tie both frame drops and crashes to blood and dismemberment (see the frustrations).
Free mode as a sandboxMedium
Free mode, where players set up any fight they like, comes up in 7% of longer reviews. People use it to blow off steam, test weapons or throw small peasants around as a giant. Several reviews that dislike progression or the Abyss say free mode alone keeps them playing, and some reviewers changed their verdict after it was improved.
Weapon forging, armor and character buildingMedium
Building gear comes up in 7% of longer reviews, mostly as praise. Players like forging custom weapons, looting armor off beaten opponents, insuring their best items and growing a fighter's strength over a run. "Being able to make my own weapons is an amazing feature," one reviewer wrote. Complaints here are about details: a menu-driven tavern that some find clumsy, too many near-identical cuirasses at the expense of mail pieces, and some items having to be unlocked in progression before free mode can use them.
Mods and split screenLow
A small group recommends mods for extra weapons, armor or performance tweaks, and a few ask for workshop support so mods are easier to install. Local split screen gets warm mentions from people who play with friends ("if you have friends, split screen immediately"), though others report it crashes or barely works.
Where players are split
How the full game compares with the free demoHigh
36% of longer reviews mention the free demo or the playtests. Within that group, more say the demo was better (11% of longer reviews) than say the opposite, citing smoother performance, better unarmed fighting, the old Abyss and Gauntlet modes and a character who could stay on his feet. "Free demo being better than a full release tells a lot," one wrote, and a run of short negative reviews simply say to stick with the demo. A smaller group says the paid game has caught up or surpassed it with more maps, weapons and systems, including a reviewer who called it the "first time ever where i refunded a game and immediately went back to buy the game again cause i realized that the demo was obsolete." Several ask for the demo's Gauntlet mode and bosses to return.
Progression mode and its difficulty curveMedium
Progression, the climb from beggar to lord through tournaments and the Baron, gets both praise and anger. Fans like rising from rags to full plate and say the loop pulls them back. Critics say the start is a lottery against opponents with longer weapons, the final tiers drag, mercenaries are weak late on, and seven-round tournaments mean one random death or crash wipes out a long effort. Some players find it too easy once they get a good weapon, while others call higher-rank tournaments near impossible. Several say there is little to do after beating the Baron (see thin content below).
PriceMedium
Price comes up in 8% of longer reviews and splits them. Some call the game worth every penny for the hours it gives, while critics say a game that crashes this often, or adds too little beyond the free demo, is not worth full price ("Doesn't add enough from the Demo to justify $25"). Some reviewers who like the game take a middle position and suggest waiting for a sale.
Controls and the learning curveMedium
Controls come up in 8% of longer reviews. Newcomers often call them clunky or floaty, and one compared it to "controlling a baby". Some short negative reviews say they could not land a hit at all. Players who stuck with it describe a moment when it clicked: "I turned the mouse sensitivity down and realized that I didn't have to throw haymakers to do damage." Longtime fans describe the same steep learning curve as a high skill ceiling.
Update pace and the recovery since launchMedium
Reviewers describe a rough launch, then a long silence from the developers. "After 3 months of complete silence from the developers, a patch was released today," one edited review reads. The patches and weekly work-in-progress posts that followed won players back, and 5% of longer reviews say the game recovered or that they flipped to positive. Others say updates add armor pieces and modes instead of fixing crashes, and a combat and damage update in mid-July split reviewers: some called it great, others said it left them taking far more damage and breaking bones at a touch.
What frustrates players
Poor performance on busy maps and big fightsHigh
Performance complaints appear in 23% of longer reviews. Players report frame rates collapsing on the Forest, Slums and Alley maps, in fights with several armored enemies, in the final tournaments, and when blood, hair or dismembered bodies pile up ("Cutting people in half cuts your fps in half too"). Owners of high-end PCs complain alongside laptop players, and workarounds reviewers share include DX11, a frame cap, DLSS or FSR, turning off hair and lowering blood. Complaints are heavier among reviews written in the first weeks after launch (37% of longer launch-window reviews against 17% of those written from June on), and a group of edited reviews credits patches with large gains.
Physics glitches and general bugginessHigh
Bugs come up in 16% of longer reviews, separate from outright crashes. The physics glitches are specific and repeated: weapons phasing through plate, characters flung across the map, weapons stuck in the ground or flying out of hand, two-handed weapons the character will not hold properly, getting stuck in the Abyss coffin, and dying before a round starts. Some reviewers find this funny. For others it decides fights, and the anger grows when a glitch ends a long run.
Crashes and fatal errorsHigh
Crashes come up in 15% of longer reviews, and the share did not fall over time (14% of longer reviews from the launch weeks, 16% of those from June on). The typical report is a fatal error mid-round, often when hitting a helmet, removing armor from a body or during heavy gore: one wrote that the "game crashes nearly every time I take armor off someone." Because progression runs are long and tournaments have many rounds, a crash means replaying fights, and some reviewers say crashes cost them characters or insured gear. Fans who love the game flag it too: "This game is great....crash.....this game is so much fun.....crash....."
The Abyss and its zombiesHigh
The Abyss comes up in 12% of longer reviews, and more than half of a hand-checked sample of those mentions were complaints. Even a review that recommends the game warns: "Just don't play the dedicated abyss mode." When a progression character dies, they must fight the zombified souls of everyone they killed to return, and players object that zombies bite through full armor, keep fighting after lethal wounds, swarm a player still climbing out of the coffin, and can number in the hundreds after a long run. "why it needed zombies that bite through armour and their own helms i will never know," one fan wrote. Players ask for the old human opponents back, a way to quit the Abyss, or a lower soul count. A few players like the twist, and some say later patches eased it.
Fragile player, tanky enemiesMedium
A damage imbalance between the player and the AI comes up in 7% of longer reviews. The player is knocked out by a bump to the head, breaks an arm punching or a leg walking, or drops their weapon after a scratch, while enemies take repeated mace blows and get straight back up. "Character drops weapon and basically dies after an enemy with a hoe scrapes your hand," one wrote. A few say the player-damage slider does nothing or only works after a reset ("The fact the damage to player slider does nothing is ridiculous"), and others say getting up after a fall takes far longer for the player than for NPCs.
Thin content and repetitionMedium
Some reviewers (5% of longer reviews) say there is not enough to do. Progression repeats the same kinds of fights at harder tiers, the maps grow familiar, and once the Baron is beaten the reward is to beat him again. "This game is mechanically deep but very very shallow in content," one reviewer summed up. Supporters answer that it is early access and that new maps and modes keep arriving.
Late-game armored fights become a slogMedium
Players who reach the top tiers describe fights between fully armored fighters as long, random and dull. "the late game becomes a slog of hitting people in full knight armour and nothing happening, unless you get lucky or unlucky enough to jank your weapon inside of the enemies chest," one wrote. Complaints include blunt weapons doing little against plate, enemies who hug and grapple instead of fighting ("the NPC's tendency to grapple slows combat down to the point where i dont wanna play anymore"), a few weapons (the war staff, greatswords, the heavy flail) dominating, and NPC blades cutting through the player's armor while the player's cannot. This complaint shows up more in reviews written from June on than in launch-week reviews (5% against 3% of longer reviews).
Clunky menus and missing guidanceLow
Some reviewers find the tavern menus and inventory confusing, with buttons whose click areas sit below the button, armor attachment nobody explains, and mercenaries players did not know existed. "the UI is janky and unnessecarily complicated," one wrote. Newcomers also ask for a fuller tutorial.
No online multiplayerLow
A small but steady group of players ask for online PvP or working co-op ("This game desperately needs multiplayer. Devs would be printing money."). Most present it as a wish for the future, and a few negative reviews cite it as a reason not to buy.
Lost saves and progress wipesLow
A smaller group, but an angry one, reports progression saves vanishing: characters deleted on relaunch, progress reset every time the game closes, or a crash during the death screen ending a long run. One reviewer wrote that "evey time I open it my progress has been completly reset". A couple of reviews blame a conflict with cloud saves or a previously installed demo. Runs take hours to build, so each of these reports describes a heavy loss even though the complaint is rare.
3. The player conversation
Thousands of one-line positive reviews ("peak", "fun", jokes about beating up Willies, the game's stock fighters) sit beside long, detailed critiques, some written by people who loved the demo and still recommend the game. Negative reviews often open by saying the game is fun, then name crashes, the Abyss and damage balance as the reasons they cannot recommend it.
Who raises what follows how far players got. Players with little time in the game, often demo veterans who refunded, talk about the demo comparison, controls and first-hour performance. Players deep into progression talk about late-game armored fights, tournament length, the Abyss after a long run, and losing characters or saves to bugs. Fans of the sandbox mostly praise free mode and mods.
The conversation moved over the year. Reviews from the first weeks after launch focus on performance, and a noticeable share of them carry later edits saying the developers turned things around after a long silence. Reviews written from June on talk less about frame rates and more about late-game balance, the mid-July damage changes and continuing crashes, which stayed a steady complaint throughout.
4. What the developers could do
- Fix the fatal-error crashes tied to helmets, armor removal and gore. Crashes come up in 15% of longer reviews at a steady rate across the year, and reviewers often link them to helmet hits and looting armor.
- Optimize the Forest, Slums and Alley maps and multi-enemy fights. Performance complaints appear in 23% of longer reviews and focus on those maps, crowded armored fights, blood and hair.
- Fix the recurring physics glitches. Weapons phasing through armor, characters launched across maps and weapons sticking in the ground or slipping from the hands decide fights in ways players call unfair.
- Rework the Abyss zombies. Reviewers want zombies that cannot bite through full plate, no ambush while climbing out of the coffin, a lower soul count or human opponents, and a way to quit the mode.
- Rebalance player and NPC durability and make the damage sliders work. Players describe being knocked out or crippled by light touches while enemies absorb clean hits, and a few say the player-damage slider has no effect.
- Give weapons real answers to full plate in the late game. Top-tier players say armored fights turn into long grappling slogs where only a few weapons work and blunt hits do little.
- Make progress survive crashes and closures. Players report replaying whole tournament rounds after a fatal error and, less often, saves and characters wiped on relaunch, which turns a crash into hours lost.
- Clarify the tavern menus and expand the tutorial. Reviewers report confusing inventory and armor menus, misaligned buttons and systems such as mercenaries that the game never explains.
