On Steam, up to 9,000 players simultaneously tested the realism-snatching medieval knight sim

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Approximately 9,000 individuals found themselves immersed in the medieval world of Half Sword after the recent demo update, offering a taste of knighthood – complete with its captivating features and potential imperfections.

Half Sword Games’ demo release of their game on Valve’s platform wasn’t something fresh or groundbreaking. The demo was launched in October 2023, and at its peak, the game simultaneously had around 2,500 users. It’s a decent performance, but not particularly remarkable for a demo version.

After that point, the Half Sword game underwent numerous significant trials (the latest one concluded on April 2nd), which attracted more participants (the maximum count being 4795 players). However, it was the recent playtests that sparked a surge of interest among players, causing a substantial number of them to engage with the demo version simultaneously. Yesterday alone, an unprecedented 9181 Steam users played the game concurrently (as recorded by SteamDB).

The primary reason for this change is that they’ve extensively expanded the Half Sword demo by discarding the old playtests and merging their content into the demo itself. Additionally, the developers have added new gameplay modes such as Gauntlet (where death sends your character to the Abyss, and losing there means progress loss) and Free Mode (which includes almost all noble titles). They’ve also revamped the Abyss in the process.

Initially, a preliminary version was unveiled unexpectedly on April Fool’s Day, serving as a prank. Not every player found this entertaining to its full extent, a fact that wasn’t lost on the developers.

Half Sword, in essence, is a solo game simulating the role of a knight, offering an engaging and authentic combat experience due to its detailed weapon control and accurate reproduction of historical armor and weaponry. The developers collaborated with experts in historical European martial arts (HEMA) and fencing enthusiasts to create a unique system enabling players to manipulate their weapons using a mouse, a feature not commonly found in other games.

Absolutely, realism in this context involves a fair amount of harshness, where characters might suffer severe injuries such as losing limbs or even their heads. Some players have expressed interest in tackling such challenges. However, it’s important to note that before the game Half Sword is released on Steam this year, there will be refinements made to the overall experience.

  1. Half Sword on Steam

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2025-04-08 02:02