Blades of Fire challenges players to steel their swords, at least until they break

Developer MercurySteam has been recognized lately as the development team behind Nintendo's recent revival of the Metroid series, the latest being 2021's Metroid Dread. Prior to that, this was the developer behind Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. Now the team is returning with an original title that's being published under the 505 Games banner. Blades of Fire takes players into a new fantasy world where steel is king. While the combat might look a little Souls-y, there's more to this game than such a simplified comparison would suggest. Shacknews recently went to this year's Game Developers Conference to give it a look.

Blades of Fire takes place in a world ruled by a race of giants known as The Forgers. When war broke out, civilization was left in ruins with only humanity left to rebuild it. Fast-forward a few thousand years and humanity prospers with the Forgers' knowledge of steel, but Queen Nerea has gone mad and has sought to turn all steel into stone, leaving blacksmith and lead protagonist Aran de Lira as the only one who can stop her.

After a dramatic opening sequence involving the death of a local abbot, players begin a third-person adventure in which the Queen's forces are attempting to raze Aran's village. Following the abbot's murder, Aran is joined by a young boy named Adso, who acts as his omnipresent companion. He's someone who can assist in analyzing enemy weaknesses or in providing guidance on puzzle sections. He's also somebody whose voice can become grating after a while, but this game does offer a novel feature, which is the ability to send Adso back to camp. That can give players the occasional respite from their companion's rampant chatter. If Adso is needed, he can simply be summoned back at any time.

If one imagines third-person melee combat that mainly involves going mano-a-mano with burly brutes, Blades of Fire could be mistaken for a Dark Souls game. However, the combat's pacing with a greater emphasis on offense makes it feel closer to something like the God of War series. What's interesting is that all four face buttons are used for battle. Each button can deliver a right-handed swing, left-handed swing, overhead swing, and body thrust. Whatever button works best depends on the situation, but from personal experience, awareness of the surrounding environment is critical. An enemy did pick a fight with me underneath the corner of a bridge and I attempted a right-handed strike, only for the swing to get interrupted with an embarrassing "clank" against a wall.

Aran's weapon also matters during any given battle. The two main weapon types that players will utilize are swords, spears, and hammers. A rock-paper-scissors formula is in place with weapons capable of inflicting slashing, piercing, and blunt damage. Some bigger enemies are more vulnerable to slashes across the sternum while smaller foes are best dispatched with a hammer over the cranium. The game will helpfully indicate with green/orange/red color-coding if Aran's current weapon will work against a given enemy or if he needs to switch on the fly.

There's another mechanic in Blades of Fire that may prove divisive and that's weapon durability. Throughout the game, players will visit the ethereal Forge to craft new weapons using materials they've collected. Players can customize their weapons or use the default template to draw out something suitable for battle after which they'll physically hammer at an anvil with quick-time events to craft something with an ideally high durability stat.

In addition to building something with a set durability, the forging process also determines how many times a weapon can be repaired. Weapons will degrade depending on how often Aran uses them against foes, uses them defensively, or strikes the environment. If weapons are fully degraded, they'll be less effective in battle and can even break. These weapons can be repaired in the Forge a set number of times, but they won't last forever and will eventually break for good. While I wasn't able to get more than a brief hour-long look at the game, the impression that the Forge left is that Aran needs to be choosy about picking battles and preserve his weapon for bigger fights.

The short demo time at GDC is likely not indicative of Blades of Fire's full experience, which MercurySteam is estimating to be something in the range of 50-60 hours. Expect to be tested by this one, even on lower difficulties, mainly because of the durability system. Blades of Fire is aiming to stand out in a crowded field of Soulsborne games and what I saw certainly shows promise in terms of mechanics, if not necessarily in terms of narrative. Look for Blades of Fire to release on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S on Thursday, May 22.

This preview is based on an early demo played on-site at a private press session during GDC 2025. The final product is subject to change.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?