Chivalry: Deadliest Warrior Review

A blissful bloodbath. 

Exploding heads, blood spray, and gurgling death rattles punctuate the delightful multi-player mayhem of Chivalry: Deadliest Warrior. This DLC follow-up to last year's first-person brawler,  Medieval Warfare, doesn't disappoint in its sheer brutality, but it’s the awesome new factions that let you run screaming into the fray as pirates, ninjas, and other fierce combatants that really heighten the fun this time around.

Rather than offer more of the same knight-on-knight combat, Deadliest Warrior's action unfolds between six distinct groups – Samurai, Pirates, Vikings, Ninjas, Spartans, and Knights. The variety this brings to the battlefield, both in terms of different appearances and fighting styles, is a welcome change from the four similar Knight classes of its predecessor. Every faction serves as its own class, and leveling each warrior type gradually opens up a diverse armory of cool, culture-specific weaponry to draw from. Amassing experience with each kill or assist provides great forward momentum, keeping me hooked for match-after-match of wanton slaughter.

Sticking with a single warrior until you've maxed out their arsenal is satisfying, but the subtle nuances of the different factions’ fighting styles make each one a blast to play.

Vikings, for example, are speedy, can dual-wield, and are able to hurl their weaponry -- including shields -- to gain a surprise advantage, even if it means they're left with nothing but their fists to fight with. Heavily armored Spartans, on the other hand, always start with a shield and a long spear. They can either stab with the latter or hurl it permanently, automatically forcing a switch to a sword for closer combat. Other warriors have similarly interesting quirks to set them apart, and the groups are well balanced in terms of both their capabilities and gear selection.

Varied loadout combinations within each faction are also a big draw here – as are the unique goodies each one lets you fight with. Shuriken, bladed claws, flaming rum bottles, pistols, and many other dangerous playthings greatly expand the range of strategic options in combat. Which role you fill on the battlefield is now a lot more fluid too, thanks to the excellent option to cherrypick your primary and secondary weapons from just about anything you've unlocked for your warrior. That means I can double down on melee gear or swap one out for a missile weapon, and I love the differences in each weapon’s reach, damage, and speed. They have a very tangible impact on fighting tactics when I'm face-to-face with a mob of dudes trying to gut me.

Deadliest Warrior's magic isn't all in its weapons, though. The combat itself is still just as nutty and hyper-violent as ever, which is part of what drew me in to the original. Matches are fast-paced and intense, particularly when they play out in bigger arenas with 64 players on the field at once. When throngs of warriors collide in one hotspot, blood and body parts fly everywhere as flailing attacks hit their mark. It's an exciting kind of chaos that leads to humorous displays of gory dismemberment, crushing failures, and harrowing escapes.

Stabbing? Burning? Slicing? It's all fair game here.

Charging into the mess with blades swinging is a fun but often-suicidal gamble, and accidentally killing allies with wayward blows is an occasional nuisance. Fighting on the outskirts of bigger clusters leaves more room to build up a rhythm as you block, dodge, and trade blows with opponents, and a new Duel mode lets you explore this in greater detail with one-on-one battles in smaller confined arenas. It feels like the nuts and bolts of combat – both long-range and melee – have been tightened for the better, but some rough spots do pop-up in other areas. Bots, for example, make awful comrades. They sometimes cluster in groups at spawn points doing nothing but spin around at random. Fortunately, there are plenty of servers populated with human opponents to carve up instead.

The absence of team objective-based maps like those found in the original is another disappointment, but new multi-team matches that allow all six factions to battle it out on a single map makes the standard run of modes a lot more entertaining. A broad range of match combinations let you conduct funny Pirates vs Ninjas throwdowns, for example, or even mix it up in red vs. blue bouts that let each player pick whatever faction they please. This diversity carries over to the map designs themselves, as each group also has its own home turf to fight it out across. From sandy beaches filled with caves to wintry villages caked in fresh snowfall, there are some cool-looking maps sporting ample nooks and crannies you can use to your advantage.