To be honest, I wasn't sure if I should recommend this game for a very long time. I struggled A LOT to really understand what was going on with the advanced mechanics in this game. But at this point I have over 140 hours in it and I can finally say that I'm probably out of the rookie stage. Don't get me wrong, there are still moments where I see a very skilled enemy and I simply don't understand how they're able to pull the stuff off they're doing, but I'm slowly getting the hang of it.

Let me just say right off the bat – No, this game is not as bad as Chivalry in the combat department. I've seen a lot of people saying something like that but it really isn't. Mordhau has limits to your swings, so that you can't turn around in full speed and do reversed overheads. Yes, some accels and drags still look a little wonky but not nearly as bad as in Chiv.

This game is still hard, though. Very, very hard. And not only because there are a lot of players who are able to outplay you of course, but also because there are a lot of mechanics to constantly keep in mind while doing combat in Mordhau. You need to learn, practice and push these mechanics into your muscle memory to perform something that could be described as “good.”

And because there are so many little things to keep track off, it makes the combat so interesting. The angle of your attack, morphs, feints, chambers, accels, drags, parry timing, combos, ducking, positioning and movement are the main things you have to keep in mind for yourself, and your enemy, at all times while fighting in this game. The initial basics are not that big of a deal, but getting deeper and deeper into it and mastering these aspects, is what takes a lot of time but makes it rewarding in the end.

What's also very rewarding and fun is the progression system. For your performance on the battlefield you're awarded with gold, which you can spend on new weapons or armors, creating custom loadouts to build the knight of your dreams. It's also balanced quite well, you never get too much or too less gold. The main bulk of the weapons is also balanced well enough, there are more which are under-powered than over-powered right now. But the devs keep track, seem very dedicated to their project and do their best to adjust and patch.

The presented game-modes are totally fine, imo. Frontline is a objective-based, huge clusterfrick where hordes of players can clash against each other. TDM is what you expect. Skirmish is last-man-standing in teams. Deathmatch is ffa, but there are a lot of duel-servers where you can do 1v1. The Hordemode can be fun with friends and for some reason there's even a Battle Royale mode... Those modes are more than enough for a fighting game like Mordhau. Although, I would enjoy real 1v1 arenas for competitive play in the future.

So the combat is fun, progression is nice, price is low... What's not to like?

For example, the maps. Some of them are just so badly designed, it hurts every time they get voted. Some are unbalanced towards teams, so that red has an advantage over blue, or vise versa. Some are simply too small for the amount of players on them, so everything is totally cramped. Some are way too large, even for the most amount of players, so that you have to run endlessly to get to the next fight. In addition, they suffer quite a lot from bad geometry so that your knight can get stuck on the smallest of ledges. Oh, and you can clip into terrain here and there, which can be exploited by trolls to shoot you with a mounted crossbow from within a wall. Not cool.

On some maps you can ride horses. Horses are not fun to deal with since the player riding them gets an extreme damage boost to all their attacks, even when they just go slowly. Getting them off the horse is also pretty hard. Something else, on a personal note, I don't enjoy the ability to spam emotes via keybindings. Constant screaming and mad giggling around me can be very distracting and annoying. You can aim at a player and mute them manually, but there's no way in the options to do that generally yet. I hope they add this soon...

Oh, and of course there's the whole argument and controversy about toxicity going on. Yes, some players can be trolls, very toxic, spam the n-word in chat and so on... But you can mute or votekick them if it gets too extreme. And to be honest, a single match of LoL is more toxic than what I've experienced in Mordhau yet.



So, all in all I do recommend Mordhau as a medieval fighting game. It's a project of passion with active devs for a small price which can entertain and motivate you for a long time. However, I will say it's probably better picking it up to try sooner than later. As it is natural for most games, the playerbase is slowly declining... And with not enough new players coming in, late newcomers will have a hard time playing against advanced fighters.

To be honest, I wasn't sure if I should recommend this game for a very long time. I struggled A LOT to really understand what was going on with the advanced mechanics in this game. But at this point I have over 140 hours in it and I can finally say that I'm probably out of the rookie stage. Don't get me wrong, there are still moments where I see a very skilled enemy and I simply don't understand how they're able to pull the stuff off they're doing, but I'm slowly getting the hang of it. Let me just say right off the bat – No, this game is not as bad as Chivalry in the combat department. I've seen a lot of people saying something like that but it really isn't. Mordhau has limits to your swings, so that you can't turn around in full speed and do reversed overheads. Yes, some accels and drags still look a little wonky but not nearly as bad as in Chiv. This game is still hard, though. Very, very hard. And not only because there are a lot of players who are able to outplay you of course, but also because there are a lot of mechanics to constantly keep in mind while doing combat in Mordhau. You need to learn, practice and push these mechanics into your muscle memory to perform something that could be described as “good.” And because there are so many little things to keep track off, it makes the combat so interesting. The angle of your attack, morphs, feints, chambers, accels, drags, parry timing, combos, ducking, positioning and movement are the main things you have to keep in mind for yourself, and your enemy, at all times while fighting in this game. The initial basics are not that big of a deal, but getting deeper and deeper into it and mastering these aspects, is what takes a lot of time but makes it rewarding in the end. What's also very rewarding and fun is the progression system. For your performance on the battlefield you're awarded with gold, which you can spend on new weapons or armors, creating custom loadouts to build the knight of your dreams. It's also balanced quite well, you never get too much or too less gold. The main bulk of the weapons is also balanced well enough, there are more which are under-powered than over-powered right now. But the devs keep track, seem very dedicated to their project and do their best to adjust and patch. The presented game-modes are totally fine, imo. Frontline is a objective-based, huge clusterfrick where hordes of players can clash against each other. TDM is what you expect. Skirmish is last-man-standing in teams. Deathmatch is ffa, but there are a lot of duel-servers where you can do 1v1. The Hordemode can be fun with friends and for some reason there's even a Battle Royale mode... Those modes are more than enough for a fighting game like Mordhau. Although, I would enjoy real 1v1 arenas for competitive play in the future. [i]So the combat is fun, progression is nice, price is low... What's not to like?[/i] For example, the maps. Some of them are just so badly designed, it hurts every time they get voted. Some are unbalanced towards teams, so that red has an advantage over blue, or vise versa. Some are simply too small for the amount of players on them, so everything is totally cramped. Some are way too large, even for the most amount of players, so that you have to run endlessly to get to the next fight. In addition, they suffer quite a lot from bad geometry so that your knight can get stuck on the smallest of ledges. Oh, and you can clip into terrain here and there, which can be exploited by trolls to shoot you with a mounted crossbow from within a wall. Not cool. On some maps you can ride horses. Horses are not fun to deal with since the player riding them gets an extreme damage boost to all their attacks, even when they just go slowly. Getting them off the horse is also pretty hard. Something else, on a personal note, I don't enjoy the ability to spam emotes via keybindings. Constant screaming and mad giggling around me can be very distracting and annoying. You can aim at a player and mute them manually, but there's no way in the options to do that generally yet. I hope they add this soon... Oh, and of course there's the whole argument and controversy about toxicity going on. Yes, some players can be trolls, very toxic, spam the n-word in chat and so on... But you can mute or votekick them if it gets too extreme. And to be honest, a single match of LoL is more toxic than what I've experienced in Mordhau yet. So, all in all I do recommend Mordhau as a medieval fighting game. It's a project of passion with active devs for a small price which can entertain and motivate you for a long time. However, I will say it's probably better picking it up to try sooner than later. As it is natural for most games, the playerbase is slowly declining... And with not enough new players coming in, late newcomers will have a hard time playing against advanced fighters.