Mordhau (video game)
Mordhau is a multiplayer medieval hack and slash fighting game developed by the independent Slovenian studio Triternion, with a prominent aspect of skill-based competitive play and customization. It features a combat system emphasizing hand-to-hand combat, loosely based on historical techniques such as feints, redirection, and alternative use of weapons. Other features include ranged weapons, siege engines and mounted combat. The game was released on April 29, 2019 on Steam. The game was partially financed through a Kickstarter campaign in 2017, raising nearly $300,000. Gameplay. In "Mordhau", players engage in hand-to-hand combat  with medieval weapons such as swords, spears, shields, hammers, bows, siege weapons and more. When in close-quarters combat, players can defeat their opponents by utilizing techniques like directional strikes, stabbing, kicking, dodging, blocking, and parrying while watching their health and stamina bars. Players may also ride horses in battle. The game can be played in either first person perspective or third person perspective. Customization. Outside of gameplay, the player can edit and create mercenaries for most game modes. When creating or editing, the player can change their mercenary's body type, face, and voice for cosmetic purposes. Editing things  like armor, weapons, and perks cost in-game points. Depending on what type of armor the player has it can affect the movement speed of the player like how wearing heavier armor will make the player move slower and cost more points, while there are only three levels of armor there are also cosmetic variations for armor. All weapons point values are roughly determined by the size of weapon as a light dagger would not be as costly as a heavy hammer. The perk system will grant the mercenary various passive abilities at the cost of points, which scale based  on how ideally useful the perks are. Development. The game was built using Unreal Engine 4. Marko Grgurovič, a Slovene PhD student of computer science at the University of Primorska, began development of "Mordhau" alone. With no experience in game development, Grgurovič had begun building a prototype in Unity called "Project Slasher". After working on "Project Slasher" with another person for two years, the team decided to remake the entire project, as it was not up to their standards. During the next three years, Grgurovič was joined by other programmers, graphic designers, and animators from all over the world, many  of whom enjoyed playing video games like "" and wanted to make something similar. This led to them founding the company Triternion, and producing first versions. In this time period, the development team switched from using Unity to Unreal Engine, and renamed the project to "Mordhau". In March 2017, the company launched the Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for development, which achieved its basic goal in less than 24 hours. The game was finally released on 29 April 2019. Reception. Sales. "Mordhau" became an immediate success, selling 200,000 copies in less than a week, then exceeding 500,000 copies sold by 7  May. It reached the top of the Steam sales charts. Triternion apologized after its servers could not sustain the massive influx of players. About a month after its release, "Mordhau" had sold 1 million copies; to celebrate, the developers released a new map alongside new weapons and cosmetics. Critical reception. "Mordhau" has a score of 81 on Metacritic based on 21 critic reviews. Prior to official release, "Mordhau" received praise from early reviewers for its fighting system, the chaotic but fun gameplay, and its graphics. Reviewers enjoyed the game's intricate fighting system. James Swinbanks of "GameSpot" called it a  strategic, punishing and ultimately satisfying video game. "Destructoid" Patrick Hancock found it "exciting to find efficient and unique combos" that led to players developing their own unique play style. "IGN" Samuel Horti enjoyed the "feeling of constant skill progression" as he gradually learnt the game's mechanics through experience and video tutorials. Javy Gwaltney of "Game Informer" shared this feeling, saying that "every increment of improvement is rewarded with spectacular displays of violence". However, "GameSpot" and "IGN" also shared the belief that the game's in-game tutorial could have done a better job of explaining the game's mechanics  to new players. Swinbanks wrote that "Mordhau" did not provide adequate feedback to strikes, which made the game feel like a "slow, merciless grind of death after death" as you learned how to play. Horti wished that the game's tutorial would help him "learn by playing instead of turning to YouTube guides". T.J. Hafer from "PC Gamer" worried that the game's complexity might alienate players who wanted to play a supporting role in battle, stating that "Mordhau" "doesn’t support that playstyle especially well". Controversy. In a July 2019, article in "PC Gamer", Samuel Horti described "Mordhau"s player  base as having toxicity problems, claiming that many players who use homophobic, racist or sexist language in the game or on "Mordhau"s forums were not adequately punished by Triternion. He criticized Triternion's hands-off approach to word filtering and player banning in order to avoid claims of censorship. Horti also criticized Triternion's proposed approach to handling female and non-Caucasian characters in upcoming expansions. He quoted a Triternion artist who, when asked about character diversity, stated that the developers would "give [the players] the option to enable and disable different things". When prompted by "PC Gamer" for clarification , a "Mordhau" developer confirmed the stance, saying "it depends how [the "Mordhau"] community is in the future". A "Mordhau" moderator's post on "Mordhau"s Steam community forums dated April 2019 stated that the developers "might add a simple client-side toggle" for players concerned about character realism. Subsequently, Triternion released a statement on Twitter, denying that they had considered adding the option for players to disable characters based on their ethnicity. On July 3, the company reaffirmed via a post on their own forums that they were not going to add those options, saying that "our official stance is that  these toggle options are out of the question". Triternion elaborated that the idea was briefly discussed and ultimately discarded, but that the employees that "PC Gamer" interviewed were not aware of the final decision. The controversy was picked up by many major gaming sites.