This Dark Fantasy Action-Adventure Transforms You Into A Tactical Forge Master

It's often joked that MercurySteam is the "real" metroidvania studio, being the only developer to officially work on both the Castlevania and Metroid series--a point further illustrated with large displays of Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 and Metroid: Samus Returns at the front of its office in San Sebastián de los Reyes, Madrid. Its new game, Blades of Fire, however, harkens back to an even earlier time, acting as a spiritual successor to Severance: Blade of Darkness.

Released on PC in 2001, Blade of Darkness was a Conan-inspired dark fantasy third-person action game that was the sole release from Rebel Act Studios, whose members--including studio co-founder and Blades of Fire director Enric Alvarez--would go on to start MercurySteam. While a commercial flop at the time, its combination of dark fantasy visuals with hardcore combat mechanics is now considered a precursor to the souls-like genre.

"In reality, Blades of Fire is kind of a return to our origin," Alvarez explains. "Nowadays, the mould of dark fantasy with difficult and precise combat has become popular, mostly thanks to From Software, so we saw our opportunity to go back to our roots, which has made me feel young again."

While MercurySteam is better known for the licenses it has worked on, Alvarez says that the team takes pride in doing things its own way, whether that is in developing games with its own internal engine or how it also took the Castlevania license and made it its own. "It's Konami's property, but from an emotional standpoint, we like to approach projects as if it is ours--the mythology, story, and characters in [Lords of Shadow were] fully reinvented by the studio." MercurySteam seems to have taken a similar approach to Blade of Darkness' spiritual successor--after playing the first three hours of Blades of Fire, it's clear that this isn't an action-RPG that's just repeating the souls-like formula. Instead, it forges its own path.

You play as Aran de Lira, who doesn't just fight but makes his own weapons. The recently crowned Queen Nerea has used dark magic to turn steel into stone, rendering all weapons useless, and only a Sacred Hammer originating from the legendary Forgers of the world--that's now in Aran's possession--is able to forge new armaments.

Forging weapons is an important aspect to Blades of Fire, and far more involved than the crafting systems seen in other games. "Crafting is usually about finding materials and then having it done, but this is about making decisions," says lead game designer Joan Amat. "When you're fighting enemies, you have to be tactical about it. You have to either be faster than them, or be able to block their attacks. The whole point is that you are designing weapons--you are making the key decisions that make weapons have certain properties that you desire."

For instance, you can use better materials to improve a weapon's attack stats, but there are also physical stats you have to pay attention to, like the weight and speed of the weapon, which can also impact your ability to block and parry. It's also the first time I've seen in a game where a weapon's reach is explicitly displayed. That attention to physicality is something carried over from Blade of Darkness. "In that game, you could attack an enemy and your sword could [be inches away] from the neck, and you [wouldn't] hit anything because you were still too far from the enemy," says Alvarez. "[We wanted to bring back] that obsession for having a physical combat [that] is as believable as possible. You can feel the weight of your weapons, or the trepidation when you block an attack."

That physicality translates to Blades of Fire's weighty combat, using the four face buttons for attacking the enemy's head, left side, right side, or body respectively, with strong attacks executed by holding the button down to charge up. Stronger attacks take a little more time to pull off and leave you open, but have far more impact. One of my most satisfying tactics was charging up a polearm while just in range of an approaching enemy, then watching the camera move in as Aran's overhead swing caved in their head in one fell swoop.

Deciding the weapon you wield and where to attack an enemy are both important. For example, a warmonger's heavy armor means my sword just bounces off, but I have a better time when switching to a blunt polearm, which can be quickly done by holding the right trigger then using the right stick to swap to a weapon that I've added as a shortcut. You can also press the trigger to change the weapon stance, so you can thrust instead of swinging them, which becomes especially important in narrower environments where your blade can bounce off walls, also reducing their durability.

Knowing the best weapon to use is clearly indicated with a targeting system that also provides a color-coded outline to determine how vulnerable the enemy's armor is to the weapon you're wielding--green means the equipped weapon can penetrate the targeted enemy's armor, orange is neutral, and red means your weapon won't be effective. These colors can also change during an encounter or you may see a combination of colors, where the enemy's arms might be exposed but they're wearing a hard spiked helmet. Amat tells me that players can also opt to turn off the color-coding if they want to be more immersed and just observe enemy armor to figure out what weapon to use and where to attack. These color outlines however are definitely helpful against non-human enemies, like an elemental foe made entirely of water, where its weaknesses are less apparent initially.

The left trigger allows you to use your weapon to block or parry when timed right, though holding it down is also used to recharge your stamina gauge. Unlike most souls-likes, there are separate gauges for defense and stamina, and in some cases, very powerful attacks will still break through your defense and cause damage. I was less convinced by this mechanic, which Aran refers to as "the breath of the defender," especially as it doesn't restore your stamina more quickly, such as ki pulse in the Nioh games, but your stamina will recover extremely slowly if you don't use it.

That layered complexity to combat is also apparent in the forging of weapons, requiring scrolls that are only obtained after killing specific enemies wielding those weapons a set number of times. Then, after customizing the weapon's build and materials, there's also a forging minigame, which I didn't fully grasp during my hands-on, but it involves using the two analogue sticks to align a row of bars closely to the shape shown before striking with the hammer. Depending on how well you do, you can increase the star rating for your weapon, which indicates how many times it can be repaired.

Despite having such attention to forging and customizing your weapons, and even getting to give them a unique name, there's no getting away from the inevitability that they won't last--in its own take on a Souls game's formula, you'll also drop the weapon you're wielding upon death, needing to journey back to where you died to retrieve it (though it won't disappear for good if you die again before retrieving it). "Not all weapons will mean something to you, and sometimes you're testing the waters before you go back to the forge, use better materials and make an extra effort to get better stats and stars," says Amat. "When you start treating that weapon with care and start cherishing it, that is the soul of the game."

While there's a deep and robust combat and weapon system, I'm also intrigued by Blades of Fire's story. From what I've seen, the game doesn't spend much time indulging in cutscenes, which can leave the relationships and goals for some of the characters feeling rushed. However, the narrative set-up is interesting. Within minutes of the beginning, you see an old friend of Aran's, Abbott Dorrin, killed in front of his eyes by the queen's soldiers, which then saddles him with the abbott's young apprentice, Adso, along with the Sacred Hammer, before Aran decides the following morning to journey to the palace to kill the queen.

I'm not entirely sold on Adso as a companion, even though there is an amusingly odd couple dynamic as the young cocky scholar throws casual barbs about Aran's age. Otherwise, he functions more explicitly like a walking encyclopedia who you can ask about your quest, the world, or enemies, which he makes sketches for in your journal--perhaps acknowledging how some players might find him annoying or unnecessary, you even have the option to just whisk him away to camp. It then remains to be seen whether a deeper emotional bond will develop, as with Atreus in God of War or Ellie in The Last of Us.

Alvarez assures me that I'll be able to fully appreciate Blades of Fire's story once I have played through it but also that it's structured in a way for players to take it at their own pace: "The story in Blades of Fire doesn't pursue you; you have to pursue the story." Its stylized aesthetic, taking inspiration from '80s fantasy movies and American artist Frank Frazetta, certainly isn't lacking in vibrancy, with a bright color palette and some expressive characters that include an adorable skeleton child and a huge flying scarab that also doubles as a house--not the usual imagery you'd associate with dark fantasy. But to quote the old lady who lives in that scarab house, it's probably to MercurySteam's credit that the focus is "Less drama, more action!"

Blades of Fire releases on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC (via Epic Games Store) on May 22.