Forged in Fire: The Brutal Blacksmithing Adventure of Blades of Fire

I tried to engage in Blades of Fire, assuming it would be an easy ride considering my previous gaming experience, and I faced dire consequences. I perished repeatedly in MercurySteam’s latest action-adventure, the same studio responsible for Metroid Dread and Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. It wasn’t until I began to truly grasp how tenacious and resolutely unique Blades of Fire is that I realized its potential sharpness.

Blades of Fire was just unveiled last week, so it’s perfectly understandable if you’re unfamiliar with it. However, it’s set to be released very soon, on May 22nd. Somehow, MercurySteam managed to keep this game under wraps for four years of development. How they pulled it off with a team of 200 people is beyond me—it’s truly remarkable. The implication for the version of the game I experienced at a preview event is that it already feels nearly polished, making a striking initial impression.

We are firmly in fantasy territory here—rich, abundant, and extravagant fantasy, yet occasionally harsh and twisted. Enchanted forces traverse a landscape overflowing with foliage and alive with wildlife, while beings like trolls and elementals frolic about. Soldiers resemble the Locust foes from Gears of War—they possess a similar bulk and pallor—as they lurk, waiting. In fact, the entire game has a robust quality reminiscent of Blizzard titles. Arms and hands are oversized, while structures and walls are doubly thick, contributing not only to a stunning visual aesthetic but also imparting a solid, weighty feel to the game. Remember how it felt to chainsaw Locust in half in Gears of War? That same satisfying gore is present here as well, smashing heads like watermelons with massive hammers, or severing limbs with sweeping sword strikes.

To summarize: Blades of Fire—not to be confused with the ice-skating film Blades of Glory—represents an action-adventure that emphasizes combat and features an innovative forging mechanic around which the entire game revolves. You assume the role of a rough character named Aran, who awakens in an unfamiliar location and fights against soldiers before receiving a mystical forge hammer that he seems destined to wield. Upon using it, he is transported to a magical forge realm where he will repeatedly return to craft his weaponry.

This forging mechanic is far from trivial—I’ve never encountered anything quite as intricate. It expands the process of weapon creation into several steps and numerous options, all of which influence the final properties of your weapon. For instance, you can choose different metals for various parts of the design while contemplating blade shapes, guard styles, and pommel types. For hammers, you might consider wooden handles. Do you prefer something large and heavy, or something small and agile? Should it have good blocking capabilities or a more fragile, high-damage potential? There’s a wealth of options to choose from.

Initially, you select the weapon you wish to create from a collection of scrolls you’ve gathered, and then outline a design based on the aforementioned options. Next, you take a chunk of glowing hot metal and hammer it into shape in a minigame. Your aim is to imprint a specific pattern into a defined form, akin to how a graphic equalizer behaves; while you hammer down one area, another area will rise, making it quite a challenging endeavor. Additionally, you have only a limited number of hammer strikes to accomplish this. At the end, you will receive a star rating for your effort. It’s a highly engaging and active process.

Once you are teleported back into the game world, you begin to recognize the significance of the weapons you forge. Enemies you encounter possess vulnerabilities that become apparent when you lock onto them. If they illuminate green, your chosen attack is effective, enabling you to inflict maximum damage. However, if they—or parts of them—glow orange, your weapon may need enhancement, as their armor will absorb some of the damage dealt. Finally, if they show red, you’re in trouble, as your attacks will inflict no harm at all. It’s a traffic light system: you highlight an enemy and switch between weapons and fighting styles until you find one that’s green and ready to go.

care of it. | Image credit: MercurySteam

I’m accustomed to the notion that a variety of weapons counter a range of challenges – however I’m not familiar with a game that completely negates attacks entirely when they are mismatched. Additionally, I’m not used to this particular method of switching between them. Here, changing weapons requires holding down the right trigger and pressing the right stick, whereas altering combat styles merely necessitates a tap on the right trigger (or at least it did when I was using a PS5 controller linked to a PC). As for combat styles, they modify the way you wield a sword, opting for either the tip for stabbing or the edges of the sword for slicing. Hammers, on the other hand, simply smash everything in their path, as far as I can tell. I understand this may not sound challenging, but in the midst of battle, it becomes quite complex, especially when a range of foes nearby necessitate different strategies.

The combat system in Blades of Fire can be a bit clumsy at first. I mean, who assigns a dodge-roll to the left bumper, for goodness’ sake? It’s characteristic of how this game does things its own way and not anyone else’s. The face button attacks differ from the norm as well. Instead of designating light or heavy attacks, here they determine the direction of your strikes. Different face buttons correspond to attacks from the left or right, or to the head or torso, and if you hold down the button, you execute a brutal move – which is precisely what it sounds like: a potentially deadly and incredibly gory finishing blow. Remember the watermelon head-pops I mentioned before? Hold down the triangle button to pull them off.

It’s a unique system, but Blades of Fire implements it this way to connect with the previously mentioned traffic-light system. Enemies can have specific areas of vulnerability—think patches of green—so if they are exposed in their torso, you must aim for that area, and if they aren’t wearing a helmet, you can easily hit their head. There’s a lot to take in.

Complicating the already awkward experience is the game’s design. To me, Blades of Fire straddles the line between a Soulslike and the well-known God of War games. In fact, there are quite a few parallels to God of War, with you playing as a gruff older character on an adventure with a spirited young companion named Adso; you take it upon yourself to defeat a malevolent queen, and Adso offers his service, providing valuable assistance by highlighting enemy weaknesses and helping with puzzle-solving. The gameplay feels reminiscent of God of War in combat, but it’s more punishing like a Soulslike; instead of depriving you of experience points, it makes you drop your crafted weapons upon death. You can retain a basic sword, but in order to retrieve your gear, you’ll need to battle your way back through respawned enemies—this can be particularly challenging if you’re not equipped with the specialized weaponry you should ideally use against them.

Back to the forge you must go, and this is my fourth or fifth visit there in th