Chivalry 2 Review (Wandering Cavalry)
A hardcore yet entertaining massively multiplayer medieval hack-and-slash game with completely no chivalry at all
8/10
Opening
On July 30, 2024, as the developer announced that the game would stop substantive content updates, Chivalry 2, a game released in June 2021, officially ushered in the final stage of its life. Even though the game had encountered a storm of negative reviews, this news still caused an uproar and widespread dissatisfaction among its players. Perhaps this means many players still have hope for it deep in their hearts. As of today, Chivalry 2 still has an extremely stable player number of around one thousand to two thousand, which is enough to support its survival. Rather than recreating the pure hardcore medieval hack and slash, Chivalry 2 is committed to bringing fun to players through disorder, chaos, sneak attacks, gang fights, and other despicable means and brawls without any chivalry. The many ridiculous and hilarious scenes in the game will surely leave a deep impression on you.
Strength
Compared to its predecessor, Chivalry: Medieval Warfare, Chivalry 2 can switch freely between first-person and third-person. The operation design is easier to learn but hard to master. Unlike similar hack-and-slash games such as For Honor and Kingdom Come: Deliverance, which have a more competitive parrying system, in Chivalry 2, players only need to consume stamina to block most attacks, but this does not mean that the battles in the game lose their spectacle and strategic depth. Simply defending or attacking blindly will quickly consume all your stamina, eventually exposing your weakness and leaving you vulnerable to attack. How to calmly respond and accurately control your stamina in a chaotic and tense situation is not only the key to victory but also an important watershed to test the skills of different players. The most vulnerable archers in the game will not be killed by one blow even when they are at full health, which also provides a certain fault tolerance limit for players' operations in a relatively hardcore game environment.
The map scenes in Chivalry 2 vary greatly, from forests deserts, and fortresses, to villages islands, ice fields, and arenas. The different environmental features, map mechanisms, and mission objectives can bring players a strong sense of freshness and fun. Fixed weapons such as catapults and ballista are extremely destructive, but the existence of friendly fire also requires their operators to think twice before acting. The game excels in creating and rendering the battlefield atmosphere, with shocking scene changes and destruction effects when advancing the progress, huge crowds of people and hearty fighting, sword collisions, cheering shouts, and other excellent sound effects, and passionate music at the climax of the game. Combined with the game's realistic and bloody performances of severed limbs, it can bring players a grand, cruel yet immersive medieval battlefield experience. Chivalry 2 is also equipped with a complete robot system, allowing players to enjoy the full gaming experience in single-player mode.
Weakness
The experience that Chivalry 2 brings to players in terms of server and game optimization can be described as disastrous. In a game that can accommodate up to 64 people and emphasizes close combat and large-scale melee, players with medium and low configurations will feel obvious lag and frame drops when the number of people increases, seriously affecting the gaming experience. The game was repeatedly attacked by DDOS in the first half of 2024, It was extremely difficult to play a normal game at that time. The situation has only improved in recent times, In addition, the game's until-cheating system is ineffective, and cheaters are able to hide their identities in various games and get away with it. The game's localization work is even more perfunctory, with many languages being machine-translated and the meaning being extremely inaccurate.
The game's matching itself has the problem of homogeneity, making it hard to bring lasting freshness to players. The game's balance mechanism is even worse, polarized matches are the norm, and there is almost no punishment for players who quit midway. Since the attacking side has a relatively fixed and unified birth point and mission objectives, they often stick together, which can easily lead to a multi-person gang fight, the overall combat experience is relatively better; On the contrary, the game has no overtime and many terrains are easy to defend and difficult attack, which are more favorable to the defender. In addition, many offensive players generally pay more attention to their own gaming experience rather than advancing the mission objectives, making it easier for the defender to win the game when both sides are evenly matched. Weapons with long attack ranges, such as spears and lances, have a greater advantage in close combat, whereas long-range weapons such as bows and crossbows can drive players crazy. Designs that add interest, such as friendly damage and friendly collision volume, will indeed affect player operations to a certain extent.
Conclusion
At a time when multiplayer medieval cold weapon hack-and-slash games are already scarce, Chivalry 2, which focuses on multiplayer gaming experience, is destined to have incomparable advantages over games like Mount & Blade and Kingdom Come: Deliverance; compared with MORDHAU, it is much easier to get started. The chaotic, hardcore, yet fun and entertaining gaming experience makes Chivalry 2 a leader in this field. It is true that the game has many problems in optimization, server, until-cheating, and balance, but Chivalry 2 is still able to stand strong due to the lack of alternatives.
Chivalry 2 is certainly worth a try and could bring you a lot of fun, but don't forget that it is still a difficult game to master. Players may need to think twice about whether it is worth investing time in a game that has stopped updating content. In a game environment filled with veterans and masters, it may be very difficult for Chivalry 2 to absorb more fresh blood. All aspects may reveal that Chivalry 2 is a game that is extremely selective in its audience.
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