By It’s often humorously claimed that MercurySteam embodies the “true” metroidvania creator, being the sole studio officially involved with both the Castlevania and Metroid franchises—a point emphasized by prominent displays of Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 and Metroid: Samus Returns at the forefront of its office in San Sebastián de los Reyes, Madrid. Its latest title, Blades of Fire, however, looks back to an earlier era, serving as a spiritual successor to Severance: Blade of Darkness.
Launched on PC in 2001, Blade of Darkness was heavily influenced by Conan, featuring gritty fantasy in a third-person action format—being the single offering from Rebel Act Studios, whose personnel, including co-founder and Blades of Fire director Enric Alvarez, ultimately founded MercurySteam. Despite its initial lack of commercial success, its blend of dark fantasy aesthetics and rigorous combat mechanics is now recognized as an origin for the souls-like genre.
“In truth, Blades of Fire represents a return to our beginnings,” Alvarez clarifies. “Today, the framework of dark fantasy, coupled with challenging and precise combat, has gained popularity, largely thanks to From Software, paving our way to revisit our roots, which instills a youthful spirit in me.”
While MercurySteam is more recognized for the franchises it has adapted, Alvarez mentions that the team takes satisfaction in pursuing its own vision, whether that involves creating games with its proprietary engine or how it transformed the Castlevania brand to make it uniquely theirs. “It’s Konami’s asset, but emotionally, we approach projects as though they belong to us—the mythology, narrative, and characters in [Lords of Shadow] were entirely reimagined by the studio.” MercurySteam appears to have adopted a comparable attitude towards the spiritual successor to Blade of Darkness—after experiencing the initial three hours of Blades of Fire, it’s apparent that this isn’t an action-RPG merely replicating the souls-like template. Instead, it carves out its own identity.
You assume the role of Aran de Lira, who not only battles but also manufactures his own weapons. The newly crowned Queen Nerea has harnessed dark sorcery to transmute steel into stone, rendering all existing weapons impotent, and only a Sacred Hammer originating from the legendary Forgers of the realm—currently in Aran’s possession—can craft new armaments.
Weapon crafting is a crucial component of Blades of Fire, and it is much more intricate than the crafting mechanics commonly found in other titles. “Crafting usually involves collecting resources and completing it, but here, it’s about making choices,” states lead game designer Joan Amat. “As you combat foes, tactical decisions become essential. You must act quicker or effectively block their strikes. The aim is to design weapons—you are making the pivotal choices that give weapons desired characteristics.”
For example, you can opt for superior materials to enhance a weapon’s attack attributes, but also have to consider physical attributes like the weight and speed of the weapon, which can affect your ability to block and counter. It’s notable as the first instance I’ve encountered in a game where weapon reach is explicitly displayed. This emphasis on physicality is a feature carried over from Blade of Darkness. “In that title, you could strike an enemy, and your sword could be mere inches away from their neck, yet not make contact due to being too distant,” says Alvarez. “[We sought to reintroduce] that fixation on making combat [as realistic as possible]. You can sense the heft of your weapons or the anxiety when you deflect an attack.”
This sense of physicality translates to Blades of Fire’s impactful combat, utilizing the four face buttons to target an enemy’s head, left side, right side, or body, with powerful attacks initiated by pressing and holding the button. Stronger strikes require more time to execute and expose you to counterattacks but carry significant weight. One of my most gratifying strategies involved charging a polearm while close to an approaching adversary, then witnessing the camera zoom in as Aran’s downward strike demolished their skull in a single motion.
Choosing the weapon you wield and targeting an enemy accurately are both crucial. For instance, a warmonger’s sturdy armor causes my sword to merely bounce off, yet I find greater success when switching to a heavier polearm, a task easily achieved by holding the right trigger and using the right stick to switch to a weapon set as a shortcut. You can also press the trigger to modify the weapon’s stance, enabling thrusts instead of swings, which becomes particularly vital in confined spaces where your blade might strike walls, subsequently diminishing its endurance.
Identifying the optimal weapon is made clear through a targeting system that presents a color-coded outline, indicating the armor’s vulnerability to your current weapon—green signifies penetrability, orange indicates neutrality, and red suggests inefficacy. These hues can shift during combat, or you might observe a blend, wherein the enemy’s limbs may be exposed while they wear a sturdy spiked helmet. Amat shared that players can choose to disable the color-coding for a more immersive experience, relying on visual assessments of enemy armor to decide which weapon to utilize and where to strike. The color indicators are particularly beneficial against non-human adversaries, like a liquid elemental, whose vulnerabilities aren’t immediately obvious.
Utilizing the left trigger permits blocking or parrying your weapon at the right moment; alternatively, holding it down allows replenishing your stamina gauge. In contrast to most souls-like games, there are distinct gauges for defense and stamina. Even so, some potent attacks can bypass your defense, inflicting damage. I was not wholly convinced by this mechanism, which Aran calls “the breath of the defender,” particularly as it doesn’t expedite stamina recovery, unlike the ki pulse from the Nioh series. However, your stamina will regenerate very slowly if not expended.
This intricate complexity in combat is mirrored in the weapon forging process, which necessitates scrolls acquired by defeating specific enemies wielding those weapons multiple times. Following customization of the weapon’s design and materials, a forging mini-game is also involved, where you align a row of bars closely to a displayed shape before striking with the hammer. Your performance impacts the star rating of your weapon, determining how many times it can be repaired.
While there’s significant emphasis on forging and enhancing your weapons—also getting to name them uniquely—the reality remains that they will eventually wear out. Echoing a Souls game’s mechanics, you’ll drop your weapon upon demise and must return to retrieve it (it won’t vanish permanently if you die again first). “Not every weapon will hold value for you, and often you’re exploring options before heading back to the forge, using higher quality materials and striving for better stats and ratings,” Amat notes. “When you begin to handle that weapon with care and value it, that embodies the essence of the game.”
In addition to the in-depth combat and weapon dynamics, I find Blades of Fire’s narrative quite captivating. From what I gathered, the game avoids lengthy cutscenes, which may render character relationships and objectives feel somewhat hasty. Nevertheless, the narrative premise is intriguing. Shortly after starting, an old friend of Aran, Abbott Dorrin, is slain before him by the queen’s soldiers, leaving him with the abbott’s young apprentice, Adso, along with the Sacred Hammer, leading Aran to resolve the next morning to head to the palace and confront the queen.
I’m not entirely convinced by Adso as a companion, although there’s an amusing dynamic as the brash young scholar teases Aran’s age. Apart from that, he serves more as an informative guide, supplying insights about your quests, the world, or foes, even sketching them in your journal—acknowledging that some players may find him bothersome, you can easily dismiss him to camp. It remains uncertain if a deeper emotional connection will evolve, reminiscent of Atreus in God of War or Ellie in The Last of Us.
Alvarez assures me that I will be able to fully grasp Blades of Fire’s storyline once I delve into it, emphasizing that its structure allows players to engage with it at their own rhythm: “The story in Blades of Fire does not chase you; you must pursue it.” The game’s stylized aesthetic, drawing inspiration from ’80s fantasy films and American artist Frank Frazetta, undoubtedly possesses vibrancy, featuring a bright color scheme and expressive characters, including an endearing skeleton child and a massive flying scarab that functions as a house—images not typically associated with dark fantasy. However, to quote the elderly woman residing in that scarab house, it’s likely commendable to MercurySteam that the emphasis is “Less drama, more action!”
Blades of Fire launches on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC (via Epic Games Store) on May 22.