First Impressions - Bladesong

I think just about every man, and a decent chunk of women, have thought about getting into blacksmithing at some point. The same is true for breadmaking, gardening, and everything else our ancestors did to survive. There’s something in our DNA that makes us want to turn those trades into hobbies. However, very few people have the time, money, or space to seriously pursue them. A decent blacksmithing set-up’ll run you upwards of £1,000. You need to have a yard to grow plants for food. Baking isn’t quick or easy. So if you want to act like a medieval peasant, you’re best off doing it in a video game. I can’t recommend any titles that let you cook, nor ones that let you plant tomatoes and watch them grow. Bladesong, which is currently in Steam Early Access, is all about blacksmithing, though. And it’s pretty good.

Surprisingly, Bladesong isn’t just a game about making blades. Instead, it’s a quasi-RPG with an interesting world and factions whose core gameplay loop coincidently involves spending a lot of time blacksmithing. The latter is obviously the game’s focus, though. You play as a soldier who survived a war that forced humanity to live in (at least) one major city. You arrive at the settlement off-screen, and take refuge at a camp that conveniently has an abandoned forge in it. Without any other options, your character calls on the skills they learned as a child to arm the locals. Which, surprisingly, isn’t very difficult. Making a basic cutlass in Bladesong is easy. You smack your virtual hammer, which you do by smacking your real mouse a few dozen times, to turn a metal ingot into something that’s roughly sword length. Then you hit it until it’s thin enough to slice with, the right width, and put a tip on it. After that, you toy around with its taper, put an edge on it, attach a hilt, and you’re done.

All this is done in a user interface that’s weirdly akin to Photoshop, and so forging more complex blades isn’t all that difficult, either. The NPCs you make weapons for all have specific requirements. You pick which ones you want to help at the start of every in-game day, and your customers become more demanding as time goes on. That’s where the game gets interesting. Some customers want curved swords ("Curved. Swords"). Others want engravings, decorations, or for your end product to have specific handling statistics. You’re allowed to fulfill their wishes however you want, but you’re encouraged to be creative. Bladesong’s UI is intuitive, and you can spend as long as you want on a project, so it’s fun to make unique weapons. If you don’t want to engage with the game’s story, you can also toy around in a creative mode that will let you craft your favourite fantasy slashing implement. 

‍Bladesong’s narrative is definitely worth experiencing, though. Not all of it is available at present, but what you can play through is surprisingly good. It’s a relatively straightforward plot that can best be described as being an NPC in Baldur’s Gate 3. There are literal monsters outside your city’s walls, and figurative ones within it. You have to interact with the latter, and occasionally the former, in a text-based UI. The first chapter of the title sees you working your way out of your starter tent into a real forge. You have to decide which factions you want to help, who to purchase resources from, and which side characters you want at your side. All of that is weirdly akin to the recent Duskpunk, and is just as enjoyable. There’s a lot of depth to Bladesong’s story, and as it develops more, it’ll only get more interesting.

All told, Bladesong is definitely worth keeping an eye on. Or, if you’ve fantasised about buying a forge, worth picking up. Not all of its features are fully implemented, obviously, but it has a whole host of unexpected elements. It’s a blacksmithing game at heart. It’s also an RPG where you decide who to arm. It’s one where you can painstakingly create your favourite fantasy swords, and trudge around in off-screen muck. Odds are you won’t be able to do that in real life, just like you’ll never get around to learning how to make bread. Hitting a hammer in the real world is a lot more satisfying than playing Bladesong. The game is still loads of fun, though.

 Bladesong is currently in Steam Early Access. Check back on Jump Dash Roll for a full review when it launches!