"While MORDHAU takes itself more seriously than Chivalry 2, there is still plenty of room for humour and hijinks in this medieval slasher."
MORDHAU has a small but thriving roleplay community that engages in all sorts of scenarios, from epic battles to personal duels and even festive celebrations.
While this will not appeal to everyone, I always enjoy it when players find ways to enjoy a game in ways not envisioned by the developers.
MORDHAU is one of the most comprehensive melee titles on the market and easily eclipses Chivalry 2 in this regard; however, unlike Chivalry 2, MORDHAU is engineered to appeal to a more serious category of gamer, in much the same way that War Is Hell, Insurgency, and Squad appeal to a different demographic than Call of Duty and Battlefield, despite having a substantial overlap.
While MORDHAU’s lack of support for skill-based matchmaking makes it less approachable for new players, those that stick around long-term will quickly find themselves learning the ropes and losing 1v1 encounters far less often.
MORDHAU is one of the few games that, for the first few years of its life, did not allow players to play as anything other than a white male despite offering a fairly comprehensive character creator that allowed for nearly unlimited customisation of everything except gender and skin tone until late 2021, which saw the first attempts at inclusion when a non-white face option was made available for the first time.
Unfortunately, many were rightfully unhappy that non-white skin tones were only available as part of an “abnormal” face model, usually reserved for faces with scarring or missing parts (such as eyes).
There is absolutely nothing abnormal about being a race other than white/European, and I am honestly lost for words on why the developers felt this was a good idea.
During a now infamous 2019 interview with PC Gamer, when addressing the topic of racism and sexism, a character artist from Triternion agreed with the statement that they were considering a toggle that would allow players to see female (and non-white) characters as white males.
However, the developer later clarified that this was a miscommunication by an artist inexperienced in public relations and that no such feature was ever planned.
Female characters were finally added in October 2022 alongside Patch 26.
MORDHAU has one of the most toxic communities I have ever encountered and one of the only ones where neo-Nazis, incels, racists, and other seedy elements appear to make up a visible portion of the player base.
The high level of toxicity is something that the developers have addressed by stating they are a small team stretched thin trying to keep the more toxic elements of the community in check.
I genuinely believe they are stretched thin. Still, delays in releasing the female character model and half-hearted attempts at introducing non-white skin tones have encouraged the more toxic parts of the community to a degree that frankly makes Call of Duty look like a tea party in comparison.
That being said, there are still good people playing MORDHAU, as the game itself is not inherently racist. Despite being rather racially monotone, I was amazed at how many players stop and wave at opponents or even attack teammates who harm friendly players.
In a recent game, I attempted to win over the enemy team by squatting and hopping at everyone I encountered. Out of the 20+ players I did this to, over 15 responded in kind, even shielding me from their less cordial teammates.
While MORDHAU appears to be a cesspit on the surface, there are still enough decent players to ensure everyone can have a good time.
MORDHAU is an action game developed and published by Triternion, it released on 29 April 2019, and is available on PC, Playstation 4, Playstation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S.
MORDHAU remains in active development, with the developers splitting their time and resources between free updates to the base game and paid cosmetic DLC to help support ongoing development.
MORDHAU supports:
MORDHAU offers the following matchmaking options:
MORDHAU supports the following peripherals:
MORDHAU is rated PEGI 18+ and contains:
MORDHAU is a fantastic game mechanically and visually, but questionable developer choices and unchecked toxic elements of the community make it difficult to enthusiastically recommend at this time.
While MORDHAU has more than its fair share of kind players, the fact that the developers took so long to add female characters and easily accessible non-European skin tones is rather concerning, especially when the character creator has allowed the creation of all manner of creatures — including giants, dwarves, and hobbits — since launch.
If the developers allowed only realistically proportioned medieval combatants for historical accuracy, the choice to limit character creation to European males might have been understandable; however, in a game that lets players dress up as Santa’s elves and fight with candy canes, historical accuracy went out the window long ago — and diversity is long overdue.
We found MORDHAU to be a good game, meaning it is likely to be enjoyable for most players, despite having a few areas that could be improved upon.
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