Why you should be excited about the gorgeous, free-to-play “swordpunk” brawler, Warhaven

There are a few surefire ways to tell if a game is going to be big. First, you look at the Steam wishlists for it. If it has 352,000 people eager to snatch it up and put it in their libraries, you know you’re onto a winner. If you see that over 3.5 million people have watched the reveal trailer, you know there’s some quite intense curiosity popping off around the world. When the beta alone attracts nearly 200,000 people, the game becomes hard to ignore. Enter Warhaven, then. The game sells itself as “a free-to-play, PvP sword action game that offers a novel melee combat experience in a medieval fantasy warfare.” Think of it as a hero shooter, with swords. A PvP experience that trades the sci-fi guns and blasters of the genre for something more rooted; a gritty, boots-on-the-ground fantasy that’s more into iron than it is plasma. Often, melee combat games that revolve around massive sword fights and jostling to get your zweihander under an enemy’s breastplate are quite complicated. ‘Medieval action’ and ‘simulation’ often go hand-in-hand. Warhaven is more interested in letting you live the fantasy of a ‘swordpunk’ knight than it is in being overly complicated. Basic attack and jump controls, complemented by simple active skills and a cooldown system, make this game easy to pick up and understand. Read more