Swordy: Early Access Review

Enjoy a fun local party brawler with Swordy.

Swordy is a brawler game designed for local PvP in frantic physics-based combat where players fight with a range of weapons; while the game is still in Early Access, most of the gameplay is already featured in the game. Its developer, Frogshark, was clearly inspired by other games in the local-multiplayer genre and Swordy fits it well.

While it’s designed for PvP, it’s also possible to play Swordy solo against several AI controlled bots past the tutorial level; having a tutorial is essential for any game and this one is well-constructed. A single player mode is coming to the game, but it has not been fully implemented yet.

There are three unique maps which provide different backdrops for the epic battles, the arenas are very similar and don’t have much of an impact on the gameplay. Each map includes a visible spawn point for each player which displays the amount of points that player has.

Physics plays a significant role in Swordy; it uses the classic player wobbling and awkward movements seen in other games of this type such as Gang Beasts. This can be frustrating at times for some players, but for the most part, this is just amusing and adds to the fun of the game.

Combat is also physics based where players need to swing their weapon and gain momentum before attempting to strike another character; heavy weapons can be thrown at the enemy mid-swing, and smaller weapons can be used to stab enemies. Smaller weapons are not very useful however and are incredibly weak when compared to the heavy weaponry in the game.

Swordy is a very promising physics-based combat game, and developer Frogshark has already promised a range of new features which will be coming in the near future; the new development team is based in New Zealand and have recently displayed their game at PAX Australia.

The game is available on Early Access on Steam and will also be released on Xbox One.