Nearly ten years after its original entry, Torn Banner Studios’ Chivalry 2 is here to bring us more medieval madness. Is the sequel a worthy investment, or should you just stick to the first game? Check out our review and find out.
Chivalry 2 Review
Chivalry 2 starts by recommending the tutorial, which you 100% want to do. Here they explain a bit about the two factions: Agatha and the Mason Order. There is some story and lore, but it boils down to red versus blue in knightly combat. It is chaotic, messy, and can be really fun when you aren’t getting blasted by archers. The developers tried to capture just how deadly a medieval knight battle would be, and they nailed it for the most part. If you can’t handle quick, sometimes frustrating deaths, this game will not be for you.
Chivalry 2 mainly focuses on melee combat with an emphasis on counters and timing. You have three basic types of attacks: a stab, an overhead swing, and swipe attacks. You can combo into different attacks or just spam swipe, which most people do. Outside of weapon swings, you can jab and kick to interrupt players and open up their defenses. It can work great in a one-on-one fight, but you are rarely in a one-on-one. Game modes have between 40-64 players, making it the very definition of chaotic combat. Expect to be backstabbed, teamkilled, and set on fire from behind.
There are a few different types of weapons to choose from as well. You start off with basic longswords, shields, pikes, and bows. As you gain levels, you unlock new classes and new weapons for your classes. While you are encouraged to stay as one class to unlock their top weapons, switching it up will be necessary at times, depending on the map. You can also pick up enemy weapons after they die, allowing you to try new ones without changing classes. The only downside to the class system is that they have a specific selection of weapons. For instance, a heavy knight can’t start with a bow or a two-handed spear, but does have access to the shield.
Speaking of bows, let’s talk about archers and how much of a baby you are if you play ranged in a melee game. You are basically admitting that you have no skill in combat and have to sit in the back lines praying you don’t engage anyone directly. If you can’t tell, I hate archers in this game, and I truly believe they should be removed. They are limited to how many can be spawned, but it isn’t enough. The only ranged combat I want to see is knights throwing their weapons at each other.
Eight maps are available at launch, with another one coming “soon.” While this seems like a solid number, rounds are swift and you will see them all within a few hours. You have two types of modes: Team Deathmatch and Attack and Defense. Team Deathmatches can vary from 100-300 kills, meaning that matches don’t last long. The objective-based ones run longer – unless the defense holds. One downside is if you run out of time but are still pushing the objective, you lose. It’d be better if you got bonus time as long as you kept moving forward, but it is what it is.
Outside of fighting, you can also customize your character’s appearance and weapon appearance. New cosmetics are unlocked by leveling up, spending in-game currency, and of course, microtransactions. You don’t have to spend any money, but if you want to rush something you can buy it with cash. Currency is earned at a decent pace, but I didn’t really care much for the cosmetics. The new weapon skins are excellent, but you always end up covered in blood anyways. To be honest, sometimes I mistook blue guys for red guys with how much blood is on people half the time. And yes, team damage and team kills are a thing in this game.
One thing I liked about the game are its VIP targets. There are a couple of maps where you have to take out a particular individual or protect a target. They don’t make this target an NPC but a player. Generally, one of the top players gets to be the VIP so that the character isn’t just erased instantly. That being said, we did have a glitch that made it for the VIP couldn’t fight back. It only happened once, but we still fought hard up to that point and lost because our lord couldn’t block or fight.
I ran into some other bugs as well, such as respawn times resetting. It’d hit 0 and just shoot back up to 18 without spawning me. Other times, the timer would stay on my screen while I was alive and kept counting down. I also had a bug where I couldn’t block or attack, but it happened after climbing a ladder. The AI bots can sometimes get confused and clumped up. We had a mission to storm a fort, and about 12 of our bots were outside the walls doing nothing. I played on PlayStation 5 and a bit on PlayStation 4. While the PlayStation 5 version ran fine, it proved to be a bit “framey” on the PlayStation 4.
Chivalry 2 improves upon the original release by a good margin, but it still needs to work out some bugs and kinks. For those looking for some medieval madness, it might be best to wait for some more patches before diving in.
This review of Chivalry 2 was done on the PlayStation 5. A digital code was provided by the publisher.
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