War of the Roses

It's a brutal execution move from War of the Roses, and the first couple of times you see it, it'll make you flinch. It's the kind of animation that brings home just how brutal war is; combat doesn't need to be set on a modern battlefield for it to be unnerving.

War of the Roses is a third-person battlefield simulation developed by Fatshark and published by champions of quirky PC-centric indie devs, Paradox Interactive. It's set during the War of the Roses - the struggle between the houses of Lancaster and York - way back in 15th century England.

So it's not your regular combat sim, then. The emphasis is definitely on the historical, and everything leans in that direction. You take control of a solitary soldier fighting in the titular War of the Roses, and in squads of up to 8 players, engage in vicious battles that play out across the backdrop of one England's most famous conflicts.

The first charge into combat feels a little surreal. Initial concerns came from my soldier's lack of speed, and the time it took to build up momentum. It took a moment for the penny to drop - it was my chainmail armour weighing me down. A frustrating moment quickly dissolved into an appreciative one. It makes sense, and it adds weight to proceedings, both literally and metaphorically.

In truth, early exchanges were brutal and difficult. It took a while to get to grips with the mechanisms attached to basic attack and defence. It was very hit and miss during the first session. It's also slower than expected, but that change of pace suits it down to ground. It makes every duel feel epic, and every encounter needs to be considered carefully. Deliberate tactics and movement are definitely the order of the day, because without care and consideration, life is short.

Soldiers charge into small skirmishes in castles and small villages, with archers and crossbowmen on the fringes, taking shots at stragglers and their opposite numbers. Watching on, it looks like chaos, and that's because it is. There's a real ebb and flow to combat that feels natural, organic even, and the tide is never far from turning. It creates genuine tension, and encourages team work, as safety and strength definitely comes from having numbers. And boy are there numbers, with up to 64 players set to be able to scrap it out at the same time.

The problems I had stemmed from the combat system, which was unusually tricky to master. Players must either block or attack. Blocking is straight forward, attacking less so. It's done by lining up each individual strike with a swipe of the mouse in the appropriate direction, and with careful timing. It took a while to get comfortable with the system; I did a lot of swiping at air, and a lot of dying. After a while I started to get to grips with the controls, and began to land a few blows. Eventually those blows started to turn into kills, but certainly not as many as I'd have liked.

One on one I was fine, because my defensive moves were developing into the most competent part of my game. But one on one doesn't happen very often, with troops tending to move in packs. It's very easy to get flanked and/or overrun, and I was sick and tired of getting brutally hacked to pieces by all and sundry. I decided that I would withdraw from the close quarters combat. Basically, I was being thoroughly bested, and if I was to enjoy the game, something would need to be done about that.

The shift in tactics came from the adoption of a new weapon; the crossbow (and later the longbow). The range on the crossbow wasn't great, and the damage dealt could've been better, but clutching my new weapon gave me a new purpose that took me out of the melee, and for that I was grateful.

Picking up a ranged weapon doesn't mean you get to completely remove yourself from hand to hand combat. Troops will still outflank and overrun, and when that happens the crossbow goes down and a dagger comes up. It's not that effective, granted, but my kill/death ratio didn't really change much. In fact, when small groups of archers engage each other up close and personal, I found the dagger to be quite handy. My success in such circumstances obviously points to others embracing the ranged weaponry in much the same manner as I did.

Firing bolts from the crossbow is a time consuming effort. Each bolt needs to be wound up and locked into place before it can be fired. Similarly with the longbow, each arrow must be drawn, and then released at the optimum moment. Spend too long lining up your shot and it will become weaker, with your archer eventually giving up and starting again.

Players also tear around on horseback, flashing through groups engaged in combat, swiping those unfortunate enough to wander into their path. It's a tricky skill to master, but when a blow is landed they are powerful, and often deadly.

Getting a kill in War of the Roses is never a forgone conclusion, and death is often further away than you think it will be. When a player is taken out there is a brief period where hope is not lost. A nearby teammate can revive you, but at the same time, an opponent can execute you in a brutal manner. You can, unless someone gets to you quickly enough to perform an execution, yield after a failed encounter, and in doing so send yourself back to a spawn point, your enemy denied the satisfaction of taking your life. This leads to split-second decisions, as it can be worth holding on until a teammate can heal you, equally if the odds aren't in your team's favour, it can make more sense to respawn and get stuck in elsewhere.

There are two different modes on offer, with a choice of straight up Team Deathmatch and Conquest to keep you occupied, and if you can find a server with a good crowd on board, the time flies. There's going to be seven maps when the full game launches, but the two I regularly visited were both large, well balanced, and full of period-appropriate details.

There is also a whole raft of customisation options, with over 30 authentic weapons to choose from. Everything from blade type, through to the design on your shield is alterable, and with three different types of armour (each with distinctive pros and cons) and a load of game changing special abilities and perks, it's easy to create a distinctive and personal build to suit individual play styles. Whether you want to focus on ranged abilities, or gear everything towards charging headfirst into combat clutching a spear or an axe, it is entirely down to player choice. As experienced is gained, different weapons are unlocked, and gold is accrued to be spent on upgrading weapons and adding the perks. It's a system most are pretty familiar with by now.

The game isn't without its faults. Many of these come from the fact that this is still only in beta; chinks are inevitably going to appear in the armour. But these are little things - glitches and imperfections - that should be simple enough to iron out before the game's released out into the wild. I really hope that Fatshark do just that, because the underlying premise of War of the Roses is an exciting one, and it's a game that has the potential to succeed.

Whilst War of the Roses focuses on some of the same core pillars of gameplay as the popular modern day shooters that we're more accustomed to playing, the setting here is so unique, so clearly defined, and the gameplay so pertinent and considered, that it feels like nothing else out there. If Fatshark can rub in an appropriate amount of polish then they might be onto something special. It's violent, it's uncompromising, it's deep, it's exciting, and if you can get hold of a beta key, it's well worth a look.