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Blades of Fire's director reveals the lessons learned since the game's launch

Blades of Fire 2.0 sees a new page in the story of MercurySteam's action game, one that comes with knowledge gained from the past.
Alex Hopley Editor UK Updated 24 April 2026

In May, we see Blades of Fire 2.0 launch. This isn't a sequel, nor is it a major expansion, but with the Steam release for the game, we'll see it gain a healthy amount of new content, including a boss rush mode, New Game + and plenty of other features and improvements. It's not even been a year yet since the game's first launch, but we caught up with director Enric Alvarez to talk about what's changed over that time.

"One of our key learnings is that there was an opportunity to further refine how Blades of Fire was introduced to players at launch. Many players approached it with expectations shaped by more traditional action games — faster pacing, immediate feedback, constant rewards — and that created a mismatch between expectation and experience," Alvarez told us, explaining one of the key lessons learned after launch.

"The game asks for something different: patience, intention, and a willingness to understand its systems. When that expectation isn't set correctly, it can lead to frustration. With 2.0, we haven't changed the core of the game — we've stayed true to it — but we've worked on making that intent clearer, both in how the game presents itself and how it is communicated," he continued.

So, perhaps if you found the initial hours with Blades of Fire frustrating, now it'll be easier to understand what the game wants of you, and what you can get from it. For more details on how thing are shaken up in Blades of Fire 2.0, check out our full interview.

Editor UK Alex Hopley covered the video game industry for Gamereactor, from new announcements and launches to the business behind them. He also wrote on tech, film and entertainment, and his coverage wasn't tied to any one region.
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