Chivalry 2 – The goodest/badest game in the world
I love Chivalry 2, it’s like nothing else I’ve ever played. The pace of the fights and the chaotic synergy created by the mechanics make it feel like total war. You are immersed in a struggle against other players that’s like nothing else on the market.
But it’s quite janky in it’s current state. The servers are held together with duct tape and broken promises. Torn Banner, the developer of the game, always comes up with amazing concepts. But then they forget what they were even doing in the first place. Leaving a rotting husk of abandoned potential and a bunch of people with depression.
While not being a review, I want to talk about the best and the worst aspects of the game.
The Countering Mechanic – The backbone of Chivalry 2
The countering system might be the most fun I’ve ever had in a video game. It could keep me entertained for the rest of my life. When you see an attack coming you can press block and do a mirror attack back at your opponent. This will cancel out and supersede his attack with your own. The best part is that this costs no stamina vs a regular block. This mechanic is life or death against skilled players as your stamina will go fast without them. Often times I’ll zone out and do this for entire games, I love it to death.
I prefer it to Mordhau’s chambers. Doing chambers with keybinds is terrible as it becomes a chore to manage the amount of keys needed. The whole thing seems designed for Mordhau’s 240 degree swing system, which also sucks.
The inclusion of the block button in Chivalry 2’s counters also gives you a buffer for safety. If you fail to counter, you only lose stamina, which is not a big deal in the short term.
Of course if you could do this perfectly all the time you would be unstoppable. So the game gives you several ways to throw off counter attempts. These being heavy attacks, feints and swing manipulation.
Heavy Attacks
Heavy attacks are a somewhat unintuitive counterplay to counters. Watching an incoming heavy attack they seem easy enough to deal with. But I suspect the counter window changes in some way. You can see the heavy attack coming, go for the counter, then die. This might have to do with the netcode as this rarely happens in duel servers.
Another idea is they are much more effective when mixed with drags. Drags alone are not that scary in Chivalry 2. But combining them with heavy attacks creates that trademark floaty effect everyone loves.
Still, they are enough to throw off anybody sometimes. I’ve beat players who were better than me by throwing in the floatiest heavy attack I could muster.
Feints – Reworked but still strong
Feints are not what they used to be. What was once a simple but hilariously strong fake out is now a robust system of swing manipulation. Feints are now more of a way to throw off both the timing and the attack angle of a counter attempt.
Feints are notably versatile in that they can extend the windups of attacks. This can augment the ranges of any weapon while the animation of the feint itself does its job, making certain weapons all the harder to read. I’m a huge fan of feints as they greatly reward creativity and awkward timing. If there is any mechanic that you decide to base your playstyle on, I would pick feints.
This is where my praises have to end sadly. The game has a ton of issues that need to be addressed. But for this article I’ll just complain about the worst aspect of playing Chivalry 2…
The Servers are god-awful
The netcode is terrible and seems to fluctuate map after map. The Breach of Baudwyn one night will play like everything is a quarter of a second off. Ghost swings everywhere. Then afterwards, The Siege of Rudhelm will feel like everything is perfect. One game you go 20 kills to 17 deaths; the next you go 46 to 7. It’s pure chaos, I recommend sticking to the basics and not getting too fancy in Team Objective maps.
A major issue with the netcode that has seemed to worsen with time is the game sacrificing windup times to keep the gameplay synchronized. This makes swings come out near instantly and makes aggressive tactics unsafe. Getting smacked with an 11 frame Grand Mace swing will teach you to block first. Even if you don’t necessarily have to.
Closing Thoughts: Chivalry 2 is great but could be a lot better
All in all I would give Chivalry 2 a shot. It’s a lot of fun on a good day but don’t give too much thought to getting good. The game stays populated, but it does experience player droughts when an update is overdue.
Better server quality would ruin my life with how much I’d play. The balance of the weapons and the mechanics seems to be in a good place… JUST GET BETTER SERVERS!
