Chivalry: Medieval Warfare

Chivalry: Medieval Warfare
European Microsoft Windows cover art
Developer(s)	Torn Banner Studios
Publisher(s)	Torn Banner Studios Activision (consoles)
Director(s)	Steve Piggott
Producer(s)	Steve Piggott
Designer(s)	Justin Pappas Steve Piggott Andrew Seyko
Programmer(s)	Michael Bao
Artist(s)	Tyler Brenot Richard Yang Rikard Lingren Yan Le Gall
Composer(s)	Ryan Patrick Buckley
Engine	Unreal Engine 3
Platforms	Microsoft Windows OS X Linux PlayStation 3 PlayStation 4 Xbox 360 Xbox One
Release date(s)	Microsoft Windows Xbox 360 PlayStation 3 OS X, Linux PlayStation 4, Xbox One
Genre(s)	Hack and slash
Mode(s)	Single-player, multiplayer

Chivalry: Medieval Warfare is a multiplayer-focused hack and slash developed by Torn Banner Studios as their first commercial title. The game is set in a fictional world resembling the Middle Ages and offers similar gameplay combat to the developer's previously released Half-Life 2 mod, Age of Chivalry. On September 20, 2012, a trailer was released which set the release date to October 16, 2012. The developers had confirmed that the game would be PC exclusive initially, but in October 2014, they confirmed that the game would be coming to PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in December 2014. A standalone expansion pack called Chivalry: Deadliest Warrior was announced on August 23, 2013 as a tie-in for the television series Deadliest Warrior. It was released on November 14, 2013.

Gameplay

Chivalry: Medieval Warfare has improved graphics (bottom) over the original Age of Chivalry (top). In both shots, a player uses his sword to guard from an attacker.

Chivalry has similar gameplay mechanics to Age of Chivalry, a Half-Life 2 mod created by the same developer, Torn Banner Studios. Combat is primarily melee, carried out from either a first person or third person perspective using medieval implements of war: swords, maces, longbows, and other weaponry of the time are used to hack, smash, and rain arrows down upon enemies. The game also features ballistae, catapults, and boiling oil to use on enemies and their fortifications. Online matches are affected through objective-based gameplay, such as breaching a castle gate with a battering ram or looting a foe's camp. While the game does not have a single-player campaign, there are plans to create an offline mode in the future.

In the game, the fictional nation of Agatha is in a civil war, with two factions – the Agathian Knights and the Mason Order – vying for control of the region. Players pick their sides and choose from four character classes, each with a different set of skills and choice of weaponry.

The game also features an extreme gore system, where the player can completely crush the head of a person with blunt weapons such as the Mace, behead or/and dismember them with a variety of swords and axes as well as shoot right into the neck with a crossbow.

Game modes

Chivalry: Medieval Warfare features a number of game modes. The main game modes are:

Free For All: Every player fights only for himself. The player with most score when the time runs out is declared the winner.

Duel: Players fight in a tournament and compete in 1v1 matches. When the player is dueling with another player, the other players are having their own duels at the same time. The player who has the most victories in the end wins.

Team Deathmatch: Two teams fight against each. Both teams have the same amount of resources at the beginning of a game. The game ends when other team loses all their resources and the remaining players on the battlefield are killed.

Last Team Standing: Two teams fight in an arena and each player has only one life. The arena features environmental hazards like wall spikes and fire towers. The team with players still alive at the end wins a round.

King of the Hill: Two teams try to hold an area in the middle of the map. First team to hold the area for a certain amount of time wins.

Capture the Flag: Both teams have to capture a flag from enemy base and bring it back to their base, while defending their own flag. First team to reach 3 captures wins.

Team Objective: Players play in either the attacking team or defending team. The attacking team must complete various objectives like pillaging a village, pushing a battering ram to the enemy gates and killing the king while the defending team must stop them.

Classes

Player can choose one of four playable classes. The four classes are the same for both Agatha Knights and Mason Order, the only difference being the color and style of their armor.

Archer: Archers use weapons like bows and javelins to attack from afar. Archers also have shortswords or daggers for close combat. Archers have barely any armor and should only draw their blades when necessary.

Man-at-Arms: Man-at-Arms is the most nimble of all classes. They use one-handed weapons, like swords and maces, and can use a shield for more effective blocking. Its armor is the weakest of the three melee focused classes, but their greatest defense is speed, as they are fast and can perform dodges.

Vanguard: Vanguards use long weapons, like Polearms and Greatswords, and prefer to stay a bit farther from the enemy. After sprinting for a while, they can perform a deadly sprint attack that does massive damage and heavily unbalances the enemy if the attack is blocked. Vanguards are unique in the fact that they are the only class to not use shields.

Knight: Knights are the heaviest of all classes. They use large, two-handed weapons, such as the longsword and battleaxe. He can also use bigger shields than the other classes. Sacrificing speed for armor, it is the slowest class in the game, as they move very slowly and attacks leave them open for longer periods of time than other classes.

Primary Weapons

The four different classes use weapons mostly faithful to their medieval counterparts.

Archer: Archers use ranged weaponry like longbows, short bows, war bows, crossbows, light crossbows, heavy crossbows, javelins, short spears, heavy javelins, and slings.

Man-at-Arms: The light, nimble Man-at-Arms uses mostly one handed weaponry such as broadswords, Norse swords, Falchions, hatchets, war axes, Dane axes, flanged axes, morning stars, quarter staffs, and holy water sprinklers.

Vanguard: These heavily armed warriors use two-handed weapons with a long reach and utilize greatswords, claymores, zweihanders, thrusting spears, forks, brandistocks, bardiches, billhooks, halberds, and pole hammers.

Knight: The heaviest class in the game uses the strongest weapons which hit slow and hard, such weapons include heavy or normal flails, broadswords, war hammers, throwing axes, and war axes.

Development

The game is based on the free Age of Chivalry mod for Half-Life 2. The developers revamped the combat system from the mod, making changes to both melee and ranged combat. Chivalry also features interactive environments and a "more intuitive" movement system, as well as new graphics and animations. The original mod was created using Half-Life 2's Source game engine, whereas Chivalry now uses the Unreal Engine. The game was first announced under the title Chivalry: Battle For Agatha on May 20, 2010, but has since changed its name to the current title. On September 15, 2012, Chivalry was successfully funded on Kickstarter.

Downloadable content

On January 31, 2013 Torn Banner released its first free content update. It contained 5 new weapons, 13 new maps (one being team objective), 2 new game modes and the ability to do alternate attacks. August 13, 2013 brought customization options, like helmets, emblems, patterns and colors. Torn Banner held a community emblem competition where community members could send in their emblem designs. The winners received an exclusive peasant hat. April 28, 2014 brought the Barbarian invasion update, 2 new Team objective maps, along with purchasable character and weapon skins.

The game has had numerous aesthetic content made to be sold for the game. New helmets, weapon skins and character models. So far no gameplay DLC has been confirmed.

On November 14, 2013 Torn Banner released its standalone expansion pack, Chivalry: Deadliest Warrior. This was developed with another studio, 345 Games and is based around the Deadliest Warrior TV series. Chivalry: Deadliest Warrior has had its own content updates as well.

Reception

Critical reception

Reception
Aggregate scores Aggregator Score GameRankings 81.75% Metacritic (PC) 79/100 (PS4) 58/100 (XONE) 51/100 Review scores Publication Score Destructoid 8.5/10 Eurogamer 8/10 GameTrailers 8.6/10 IGN 7.9/10 AusGamers 9/10

The game received generally favorable reviews with a Metacritic score of 79/100 based on 24 different critics. IGN gave it a 7.9/10, praising its medieval style ultra-violent multiplayer gameplay, but also mentioned that the game had a limited number of classes. AusGamers gave the game a 90/100 noting that the game's only downfalls were the lack of different environments and a few bugs.

Sales

In August 2013 it was announced that the game has sold 1.2 million copies. As of October 2014, the game has sold 2 million copies.

See also

• List of video games derived from modifications

External links

• Official website