Blades of Fire is a medieval 3rd-person Action-Adventure Soulslike game developed by MercurySteam and published by 505 Games. It is Single-Player all the way through. Now, full disclosure here: I was not aware of this game until I reviewed it. Despite that, the thought of a Medieval Soulslike RPG intrigued me enough to review the game. Ultimately, is the game good, or is it bad? Let’s find out together.
Game Name: Blades of Fire
Platform(s): PC (reviewed), PS5, Xbox Series X|S
Developer(s): MercurySteam
Publisher(s): MercurySteam
Release Date: March 20, 2025
Price: $59.99
An Engaging Unfolding Story
Long ago, the world was ruled by a race of mighty giants, known as The Forgers. In their wisdom, they reigned over a time of magnificence and wonder, until a devastating war erupted, and their civilization fell into ruin.
Faced with the looming threat of annihilation, The Forgers fashioned human beings to accept their mantle and bestowed upon them their most treasured legacy, the secret of The Steel. With this knowledge, humanity rose to power and came to dominate all. Thousands of years have passed, and the mighty Queen Nerea has cast a spell that turns her enemies’ steel to stone, twisting the legacy of the Ancient Forgers against most of humanity.
Now, as the main protagonist, Aran De Lira, you are given the daunting task of killing the corrupted Queen Nerea, once a close friend of yours and sister to Prince Erin. Though his pain lingers from a traumatic incident in his youth, he has shown remarkable resilience as he resolves to help others’ well-being.
Your only traveling ally in this perilous journey is Adso, who happens to be a wise and young Scholar. Fate leads the young Adso de Zelk to accompany Aran on his journey. A student of the Abbey of Egion, Adso offers invaluable support throughout Aran’s quest. In combat, Adso plays a crucial role as a strategist, meticulously analyzing enemies and documenting their traits in the travel book. This growing compendium provides insights into each foe, helping Aran devise more effective strategies to overcome them. Beyond battle, Adso’s keen intellect shines in solving puzzles and deciphering ancient texts and spells, uncovering hidden knowledge, and unlocking vital secrets to aid their journey. With his sharp mind and unwavering loyalty, Adso proves to be an indispensable ally.
So far, from what I’ve seen, the game has a really interesting story for a Soulslike-Action-Adventure genre game. Is the gameplay itself worth learning as you go, or is the gameplay too steep? Let’s find out together!
Too many mechanics for a medieval-era game
The Gameplay, unfortunately, is where the complaints really piled up (for me at least). Aside from graphical and performance issues (despite having a moderately powerful laptop that could Xcloud stream DOOM: The Dark Ages with minimal effort), I also had issues navigating out of a hole Aran was in at the start of the game!
In addition, the first 20-30 minutes or so of gameplay were super slow on my laptop. I never had that happen – not even with Starfield! I don’t just mean it metaphorically either; I’m talking about genuinely slow 5 to 15 FPS!! And it’s not that my setup is a slouch, as the MSI Bravo 15 V7VE laptop I used is equipped with an AMD Ryzen 5 7535HS and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 combo, which was able to handle Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 with minimal difficulty. And just one day after playing, my game tried to update automatically, but got Error Code: MD-DL-0. I tried updating again, and it somehow succeeded this time.
I’m gonna be brutally honest here: after an hour (or two) of all this nonsense, I just up and quit for a bit, as it was frustrating. I had to look at the review guide and an official Blades of Fire video showing off the Forge to get through the rest of this review. This game’s forging mechanic is as complicated as the combat, and that’s really shame.
For starters, remember ‘Weapon Durability’ from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild or Dark Souls 2? I painfully remember! It’s much, much worse here than in that game. At least in Breath of the Wild, you could get your weapons repaired for a fee (in Rupees) or find more of a particular weapon in any enemy encounters, or even duplicate it if you’re glitch-savvy. Here? It’s pretty much all done via the Forge, and crafting/upgrading your dulled weapons is done by trading and using materials gained from defeated enemies.
Speaking of combat, it impacts your weapons in two ways: By dulling them with each strike against an enemy or object, which in turn makes them less effective over time, or reducing their durability, which eventually leads to breakage. What’s that? Sacrificing materials isn’t enough immersion for ya’? Too bad! There’s a 20-strike Weapon hammering process that can net you up to 4 Stars, which in turn nets you up to 4 WEAPON REPAIRS in the event of a weapon break. There are three types of Steel: Light, Medium, and Heavy. It’s all part of a Triangular 2d Pyramid where the categories are Durability, Defense, and Laceration. Confused yet? If you prefer a default version of a weapon, Quick Forge is a good option. Yeah, at least something in this game works right.
And for Combat itself, mastering Directional Combat is essential to winning the toughest battles offered in the campaign. There are three types of Physical weapon damage, of which you can deal 2 at a time if you so choose: Slashing, Piercing, and Blunt, and these attacks can be aimed at the Head, Torso, or Sides. Enemies may wear armor to make absorbing damage much easier (for them) and make dealing damage harder (for you). Green indicates that maximum damage will be taken by a strike to the targeted body part. Yellow absorbs some damage, but lets you deal damage to enemies. Red is when you should strike elsewhere unless you wanna waste a weapon strike there. It’s an interesting battle mechanic, for sure.
A disappointing but authentic medieval journey
In conclusion, due to how poorly the game ran on my laptop, the slow-as-heck beginning to the story, and the complicated combat and Forge mechanics, I can NOT in good faith recommend this right off the bat. When it inevitably goes down in price, then I’d consider purchasing it. Please approach with caution if you do decide to buy it. Especially if your PC is a bit underpowered.
Blades of Fire is available for the PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC (Epic Games Store).
Review Disclosure Statement: A copy of Blades of Fire was provided to us for review purposes by 505 Games. For more information on how we review video games and other media/technology, please review our Review Guideline/Scoring Policy for more info.
