Blades of Fire Will Focus Strictly on Weapons and Your Skills Instead of Magic and RPG Stats

Following the recent unveiling of Blades of Fire, MercurySteam has talked about its upcoming action/adventure game in an interview with the official Epic Games Store blog.

Mainly, the developers focused on passing the message that this game would be more about weapons and the player’s skills, rather than flashy magic spells and RPG-like stats.

Lead Game Designer Joan Amat explained:

You definitely can’t turn Aran into a magic god at the end of Blades of Fire, right? There’s lots of spectacular things that you could do, have your weapon shoot fireballs or other things that are really spectacular. This is not our aim! Our aim is to make everything really important.

You can fill the screen with VFX and make the character feel really powerful, but we’re forced to make sure you feel powerful because you’re doing meaningful stuff—because you’re wielding that weapon, you created that weapon, that enemy has a long-range weapon, and I have to solve that problem.

The core of the game revolves around the Forge, which allows players to combine materials in unique ways to create many different weapon combinations. Below, you can find an example of the system. Amat also said that players won’t have to worry about RPG stats in Blades of Fire, given the game’s more realistic approach:

Historical YouTubers are talking about edges; they’re talking about balance, center of mass, grips and handling, and edge alignment. They’re not talking about agility, strength, stamina, intelligence, and dexterity, right? Those are not the stats.

When we moved from the stats combo into a challenge mentality, balance became so much easier. We only really need to make sure that the enemy is strong against some things and weak against some other things. There are all these other great RPGs that are about power complexity. That’s not what this game is about. Weapons don’t scale. Weapons don’t get better. You made a weapon—this weapon doesn’t grow stronger in reality. It wouldn’t make sense! Why is your grandfather’s katana so good? It was a great weapon when they made it, and it is a good weapon still if you maintain it properly, but really it’s because it has a reputation, because of what it’s done.

Players must even be careful to only really use their weapon when it is necessary, as they’ll take durability hits even when smashing barrels, for example.

The developers said enemies would feature a chaotic movement style in combat, meant to constantly keep the player on their toes instead of simply memorizing patterns. Moreover, Blades of Fire is described as a story-driven title that, however, will not hold the player’s hands at all times.

The game is scheduled to launch on May 22 for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series S|X.