Half Sword

About

Half Sword is a single player hack and slash game with medieval, historical and violence themes. It was developed by Half Sword Games and was released on January 30, 2026. It received mostly positive reviews from players.

Future Feature List About the Game Half Sword is an immersive, physics-based medieval combat simulator that offers players a unique experience of becoming a commoner-turned-knight, fighting brutal tournaments in 15th-century Europe. With innovative gameplay mechanics, you can wield your weapon with precision using your mouse, feeling the intensity of each clash as you ascend the ranks to face…

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69%

Audience ScoreBased on 16,589 reviews

gameplay627 positive mentions

optimization1.4k negative mentions

The game features stunning and detailed graphics with impressive visuals and gore effects that enhance immersion.
The physics-based combat system is unique, fun, satisfying, and offers deep mechanics with a high skill ceiling, making gameplay engaging and replayable.
The soundtrack is widely praised for its powerful, authentic medieval style and excellent compositions that enhance the atmosphere.

Severe optimization issues cause significant FPS drops, lag, and frequent crashes, making many maps nearly unplayable without lowering graphics settings drastically.
The progression is overly grindy, repetitive, and can feel punishing, detracting from enjoyment and making advancement tedious.
The game suffers from numerous bugs, glitches, and clunky physics that negatively impact combat fluidity, player control, and overall playability.

optimization
6,341 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
13%
65%
22%
The game suffers from severe optimization issues, causing significant performance drops, stuttering, and frequent crashes, especially on large or detailed maps like the slums and forest. While these problems overshadow the gameplay experience for many, the developers have been actively releasing hotfixes and patches that have notably improved but not yet fully resolved performance stability. Consequently, the game remains barely playable on mid-range hardware without extensive graphics downgrades and remains best suited for players with high-end PCs or those willing to wait for further optimization.
- “The progress between demo and early access is great and even since release stuff like performance has improved.”
- “Optimization has gotten significantly better upon initial release and it feels smoother and smoother every time I play it.”
- “The devs have done a horrid job creating a game ready to play on DLSS and Frame Generation just to reach acceptable performance, and the game also looks like ♥♥♥♥♥ on the lower graphics settings.”
- “It is extremely badly optimized, meaning you might not even be able to play the game depending on your hardware - and I'm not talking about a GTX 1050 here but GPUs like RTX 3060 - the game runs poorly for some and runs poorer for some others.”
- “Also, the game came out, and still is, incredibly poorly optimized, I'm unable to run the game on my native resolution even at the lowest graphics settings and even now I still get the occasional lag spike.”
- “The game optimization is so bad that even on low settings you're getting 40-50 fps.”
gameplay
2,047 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
31%
60%
9%
The gameplay is fundamentally unique, fun, and satisfying, with deep mechanics and a high skill ceiling that rewards mastery and experimentation. However, many players experience frustration due to unclear or poorly explained systems (notably the hidden strength mechanic), repetitive progression loops, and frequent bugs that affect combat fluidity and player control. While the combat core is praised, the overall gameplay is often considered a downgrade from the demo, with performance issues and clunky physics further detracting from the experience, though ongoing updates show promise for improvement.
- “The gameplay loop is super engaging, I particularly like the abyss system for how it encourages you to duel honourably rather than just execute everybody.”
- “The core gameplay loop remains extremely engaging and addictive, and has even deeper skill expression than the demo/playtest.”
- “The combat mechanics, damage system, and combat in general feel off, arguably worse than the playtest, but with some patches the game feels better than ever.”
- “Significant downgrade from the demo in both performance and gameplay quality.”
- “The game is worse than the demo in almost every way: worse gameplay loop, worse performance, worse controls, worse everything.”
- “Gameplay feels quite poor with low fps at the moment; sometimes an enemy spawns just one meter away from me and immediately kills me.”
graphics
1,133 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
23%
71%
6%
The game boasts stunning and detailed graphics with impressive visuals and gore effects that enhance immersion, even at low settings. However, it suffers from severe optimization issues, causing significant FPS drops, lag, and frequent crashes across a wide range of hardware, including high-end PCs, making many maps nearly unplayable unless graphics settings are lowered considerably. Players often must sacrifice visual quality to achieve stable performance, and the problematic slums map is repeatedly cited as particularly demanding and poorly optimized.
- “The graphics are absolutely stunning.”
- “Very good graphics and realistic gore!”
- “The graphics look great on epic settings, and frame generation performs smoothly.”
- “The original demo, on lower end hardware, I can run on high graphics at a solid 1080p maintaining 60fps with drops when a lot of physics interactions occur, to make the full release even barely playable I have to run it at 720p on low graphics, and even then half of the brand new maps/content are completely unplayable and unrunnable.”
- “Honestly, it's a great game but I kind of find it stupid as some people that I know can't even run the game with a RTX 3060. Honestly, Unreal Engine 5 is just a piece of dog crap. It doesn't. Yes its cons are that it is fun but the physics are progressing to be worse and worse than the demo version I've been playing the demo since release but this game just lost all the hype due to the enormous amounts of bugs. Also performance wise it can't even run properly on high end gaming PCs. Mine runs at 20 fps with a GTX 1660 even though it's close to the smallest settings it supposed still hold at least 40fps at high graphics and it just runs at 40 fps on low graphics. In all honesty I would love the performance to be fixed or at least fixed with its physics bugs but it's not going great at all if they would spend another month or 2 or even 3 on their game there would be better performance and the physics would be as smooth as butter.”
- “This game is frustrating (also UE5 has been a disaster. Just give me PS1 graphics if you're going to be busy having a heart attack while trying to look beautiful. Jesus, you masochists need to get some help.)”
stability
763 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
6%
94%
The game is widely criticized for being extremely buggy and poorly optimized in its early access state, with frequent crashes, glitches, and performance issues—particularly on certain maps like the slums. While many acknowledge these problems are somewhat expected given early access status and praise the developers' ongoing efforts to fix them, the sheer volume of bugs and unpolished mechanics significantly hinder playability and enjoyment for many players at this stage.
- “Runs great on my low-end PC too, so I'm not sure what everyone is talking about regarding performance.”
- “The game runs great for me on high graphics even when there could be a ton of improvement to the optimization.”
- “Game runs great on my potato PC even stable at 60 fps.”
- “The slums map is buggy as freak; the textures don't line up and the background is a glitchy mess.”
- “So me and my stepson were really excited to play this and i gotta say we were both very disappointed; it has tons of bugs, it locks up and freezes every 30 minutes, it's missing a lot of basic stuff, fighting and combat is not refined, arms and legs contort, your guy is a noodle basically, you fall from the smallest taps and bumps, you can die from walking into a wall at low speed for heaven's sake, and that's not the worst part; abyss is completely different and lifeless, scaralige!”
- “The game is so buggy, every other swing my character forgets how to hold his weapon, there's so many things that are incomplete or just not even given attention to; if i had looked into the company before purchasing, i probably would have avoided this half-baked product.”
story
227 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
14%
74%
12%
Reviews consistently indicate the game currently lacks a cohesive, meaningful story, with many players describing the progression mode as bare-bones or repetitive "arena fighting" rather than a narrative-driven experience. While some appreciate the added "story" elements and side missions, most find mission design confusing and lacking context, and desire more structured quests, lore, and variety to enhance immersion and replayability. Overall, the story aspect is viewed as underdeveloped and in need of substantial expansion and polish.
- “The combat is extremely satisfying (more so than the demo) and the main story mode is kind of decently structured!”
- “Overall the game and story is really good and the maps are made with thought and effort.”
- “The story mode is fun and I'm grateful there's continuity between characters, even when you die to the abyss you keep your rank and items that you've insured.”
- “I really can't recommend the game in its current state; the updates are infrequent, the game is clunky and poorly optimized, there's no story, and it just really doesn't make any sense to me.”
- “The abyss feels terrible with the insanely overpowered zombies, the main story lacks any way of telling you how to progress, you can get to a max rank of the first rank and a tourney appears but there's no clear indication that the tourney must be completed to progress; there's a ton of bugs with keeping track of money, deaths, and dying in general; overall it feels much less polished than the simple demo did a year ago.”
- “The missions, the menus, the 2D character selection screens, the progression structure — all of it feels outdated, weak, and slapped together.”
humor
225 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game’s humor largely stems from its chaotic, physics-based combat and ragdoll effects, which create frequently hilarious, unpredictable, and sometimes absurd moments. While players appreciate the funny moments born from bugs, goofy animations, and brutal gore, persistent glitches and jankiness can shift humor into frustration over time. Overall, the game blends dark, brutal medieval combat with a quirky, comedic tone that many find entertaining and unique despite technical issues.
- “I played the free demo for two hours and genuinely could not stop laughing.”
- “The combat is hilarious, especially when your character gets knocked down and spends what feels like an entire lifetime screaming on the ground before slowly remembering they have legs.”
- “One of the rare instances where a game made me laugh out loud with no words said and no intention to make me laugh.”
- “This feels like a very unfunny joke.”
grinding
146 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
2%
8%
90%
The grinding in the game is widely criticized for being excessively tedious, repetitive, and often punishing, with many players feeling forced to farm the same fights—especially against bosses like the baron—for long hours to unlock gear or progress. This monotony is exacerbated by crashes, poor optimization, and mechanics that sometimes negate player skill, leading to frustrating setbacks that undo hard-earned progress. While some appreciate the depth and challenge, most agree the grind significantly hampers enjoyment and pacing, making progression feel like a slow, unfun slog rather than rewarding advancement.
- “If the developers really want to keep strength as a mechanic, then it should be incremented through progression ranks, not grinding.”
- “You'll need a second life for grinding.”
- “I love the customizability of how you want with your character, such as their height, their hair, their armor, etc. I love the token system because it's not too grindy.”
- “About 80% of the time, it just feels like I'm grinding through boring, overly easy matches just to unlock the tournaments.”
- “The progression feels great at first then after you win the first lord tourney it gets dreadful farming for the pieces of lord armor and you can't even get some of the pieces like the foot armor.”
- “Speaking of grinding, this game is very grindy, and repetitive, and unlike the demos/playtests where you work your way up to the baron, with your only obstacle being failure, the early access is a lot more padded out, which would be good if there were more maps or areas to explore, but with the limited pool of environments, it becomes very stale and repetitive, especially if certain maps you grow to dislike because of their hits to performance.”
replayability
134 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
34%
60%
6%
Replayability in this game is generally praised for its engaging physics-based combat and customization, offering an often infinite and varied experience that keeps players coming back. However, many reviews note current limitations in content variety, balance issues, and performance problems—especially compared to the demo—which sometimes hinder replay value. Despite these shortcomings, ongoing updates and developer responsiveness have improved playability, with hopes for further content and system enhancements to boost replayability in the future.
- “Infinitely replayable, delightfully difficult, and gorgeously gruesome.”
- “For 20€ you're getting an insanely replayable game with a physics-based combat system that is so far ahead of anything else that can currently be played, that you'll catch yourself wanting to go "just one more fight" in the late night hours.”
- “The physics-based combat system in this game means that every battle is different, making for an endlessly replayable game.”
- “But right now it falls short on everything with content and replayability.”
- “Unreplayable.”
- “In all, compared to the demo, this is not worth your money because of the lack of replayability.”
music
115 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
36%
61%
3%
The game's music is widely praised for its powerful, authentic medieval style and excellent soundtrack that enhances the atmosphere and intensity of gameplay. While some users mention issues like repetitive tracks, abrupt music transitions, and occasional bugs with overlapping sounds, overall the soundtrack is considered a highlight and a major strength of the game. Fans appreciate the lively, fitting compositions and often regard the music as one of the best features, even overshadowing other game flaws.
- “The entire soundtrack of the game is pure eargasm: credit to the bard who did cooketh very well.”
- “The music is stellar, genuinely, I'll probably be listening to it for inspiration and during D&D sessions for years to come.”
- “Shoutout to the soundtrack creator — the OST complements the gameplay really well.”
- “The music feels authentic (including the real medieval songs, the English "Miri it is while sumer ilast" and the Galician cantiga 166 "como poden per sas culpas") yet unobtrusive, but most tracks are quite short and are only restricted to some battles or menus, so you'll eventually feel like you've heard it all.”
- “Also why did the music from the demo disappear?”
- “The music bugs out from time to time, playing multiple "songs" at the same time.”
emotional
40 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
98%
3%
Players express mixed emotions about the game's combat, finding moments of excitement and immersion tempered by frustrating bugs, especially with hit detection causing unfair or illogical damage from mere touches. Optimization issues and physics glitches significantly hamper enjoyment, leading to feelings of disappointment despite appreciation for the game's core mechanics and progression systems. Overall, the emotional experience swings between engrossing medieval immersion and heartbreak over technical shortcomings.
- “I cut a man in half while he bled out on the floor and I cried. 10/10.”
- “Everything about this is heart wrenching.”
- “Best game ever 10/10 made me feel like I was in medieval times.”
- “Soooo annoying playing progression, let's make a super boring story mode with permanent death progression.”
atmosphere
21 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
43%
43%
14%
The game's atmosphere is widely praised for its immersive and diverse environments, from medieval tournaments to eerie abyssal settings, enhanced by excellent sound design, music, and detailed world-building elements like taverns and crafting. While visuals and animations can feel raw or janky, this often adds to the realistic, gritty feel, keeping players engaged. Some performance issues and minor bugs are noted but do not significantly detract from the overall captivating and dynamic atmosphere.
- “I love the new environments and areas; they are so rugged and full of story and atmosphere without telling you anything about them.”
- “The atmosphere is so much better now; I actually feel like I am in a medieval tournament unlike in the demo. Maps are wonderful and a lot more open now. It genuinely feels great to walk around the forest map, for example.”
- “The clashing of steel, the dull thud of a fallen body, and the silence after a fight all help sell the atmosphere.”
- “And while the new scenery makes for neat atmosphere, it's massively offset by the hit to performance.”
- “Animations can look janky, but often in a way that feels more realistic than polished.”
- “The mechanics are fun, with the occasional bug, as it is still in early access.”
monetization
21 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Users overwhelmingly perceive the game's monetization as a cash grab, criticizing the full release for removing key features present in the demo and misleading advertising. Many feel the game was rushed to market primarily to generate revenue, leading to disappointment and mistrust despite some acknowledgment of the developers' passion. Overall, the monetization approach has negatively impacted player sentiment and trust.
- “Seriously, after all the time they have been in 'demo,' releasing this in its current state as a full release even at $20 feels like a cash grab and an insult.”
- “Save your money on something more enjoyable; this was just a cash grab.”
- “Just really disappointed; I loved the demo and playtest, but this just feels too early and like a cash grab so far.”
character development
9 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
33%
34%
33%
Character development in the game is criticized for feeling disconnected from player skill and effort, with the progression system regarded as weak. While character customization and design receive some appreciation for added depth and variety, overall visuals and character designs are often described as unattractive or inconsistent.
- “There is character development.”
- “Character customization: while the combat is great, adding more depth to character design would be a huge plus.”
- “I definitely can appreciate the additions to weaponry, character design and customization, and new and unique maps to play.”
- “The progression system is especially bad; character development feels completely disconnected from player skill or effort.”
- “Its laggy, the character design doesn't look anywhere near as clear as the ones in the demo and the physics feel different.”
- “The character designs look a bit weird.”