Battle royales are everywhere. From first person shooters like war zone To (now deceased) Third-person wizards such as spellbreak, the genre has overtaken the industry. While battle royales may be ubiquitous, there’s one that you probably aren’t playing right now that you should definitely play. It’s called Hell: Blade Pointand it rules.
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Launched for PC in 2021 before making the jump to Xbox in 2022, Hell: Blade Point is a melee-focused, momentum-based martial arts battle royale. That’s a lot of PR talk jumbled up, so let me break it down a bit. You have your standard battle royale construction here: load yourself onto a map with 59 other players, all vying to be last while an ever-shrinking circle tries to poison everyone. But what sets hell Aside from other battle royales, the focus is on combo-packed melee combat. Picture Devil May Cry into something like PUBG and you have a good idea.
In hellyou fight against other players (or bots in the game’s dedicated mode if you don’t want to be coached by better players) with a variety of melee weapons ranging from dual blades and katanas to nunchucks and staves. There are also ranged weapons, including bows, cannons, and muskets. But the majority of your gameplay will consist of close and personal combat encounters with people trying to bludgeon you to death with a melee weapon.
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Melee to win, wrestle to escape
You start each game by choosing one of over a dozen customizable characters, each with their own stats and special abilities. Once you land on the Isle of More, the main map where all the fighting takes place, it’s up to you (either solo, duo or trio) to survive long enough to be the last one standing. You do this by scouring the map for loot: color-coded weapons, armor and health upgrades, grappling hooks for combat and traversal, various potions to increase stats – typical battle royale stuff.
After preparing yourself and avoiding possible ambushes, you can test your gear against the game’s plethora of enemies, as you’ll not only fight other players or bots, but also the occasional world enemy like giant, multi-armed Buddhist statues or giant dragons. Things can get very hectic very quickly, especially if you don’t factor in the weapons you and your enemies have. There’s a rock-paper-scissors dynamic at play here, where charged attacks beat normal attacks, normal attacks stomp parries, and parries beat charged attacks. You can, of course, draw a crossbow or pistol to fire at your enemies from afar, but ranged weapons don’t deal nearly as much damage as melee weapons. Also, all of your abilities are tied to melee attacks. So while you may be inclined to play Hell: Blade Point Like a traditional battle royale, you need to open a shop to hunt down enemies from afar. Success in this game means staining your hands and weapons with blood.
But even discounting the mechanical tug-of-war between attack types, the weapons are downright deadly. When wielded by experienced warriors, most can decimate health bars thanks to their massive move lists. Take my personal favorite weapon, the katana. With a multitude of Iaido Techniques– where you quickly draw your sword to cut – and unpredictable sword swings, katanas can undoubtedly cut you into a million pieces. This is where grappling hooks come into play. Yes, grappling hook.
Grappling hooks can be found all over the map: in random chests, on corpses, on destructible tokens in buildings, and so on. While grappling hooks are primarily intended as traversal gear, they can also be used mid-fight. Assuming you’re cut to pieces by someone with a greatsword – you can use a grappling hook, which you can carry up to six of at a time, to dash to the top of a nearby tree to refill your armor and health, and yourself then hold onto the same enemy to perform a flying slam attack before launching a combo of your own. In this way, grappling hooks are a combo mechanic in their own right, allowing you to slip in and out of combat with ease, either to keep up the pressure or to get your bearings.
Blocking is always a viable tactic when dealing with an unrelenting opponent, but by using the momentum you gain from grappling hooks, you can duck, leaving your opponent disoriented, and then jump back in to screw them up.
Movement is a fundamental mechanic in battle royales, especially popular ones like Apex Legends
The Hell: Blade Point community
While it’s likely you haven’t heard of it or played it Hell: Blade Tip (yet) doesn’t mean this is another failed battle royale with a declining community. It’s actually the exact opposite. Accordingly Steam charts, Hell: Blade Point is the 7th most played game with over 100,000 players at any given time. And while there aren’t many people watching streams of the game kick or Pull out, With developer 24 Entertainment updating it with balance changes and gameplay tweaks at least once or twice a month, and regularly introducing seasons that add new characters, maps, and weapons every three months, there’s obviously a thriving player base here.
No matter when you jump into the game, you’ll almost always be able to find a match. And even if you can’t, you can still fight bots that are extremely mean and don’t mess around a bit.
The games underreddit bangs too. It’s not as busy as determination, Elder Ringor Pokemonbut with about 19,000 active members, Hell: Blade TipThe subreddit is full of memes, helpful guides and tips, and heated discussions about them Players who are AFK And what weapons are OP. There’s also the official YouTube channel, which offers insights into new characters, deep dives into weapon tutorials, and more even cool little animated shorts
There is a campaign for this Battle Royale
Hell: Blade PointThe be-all and end-all of is the frantically chaotic battle royale mode, but that’s not all the game has to offer. In addition to variations on its standard mode, such as a free-for-all where you have to get the most kills in a limited time, the game also features a PvE story mode called show down in which you can team up with two other players to complete increasingly difficult challenges.
Similar to the main game, there’s no stamina bar to worry about, meaning you can attack, climb, and sprint as much as you like. While you’re limited to a handful of characters, progress with each of them carries over to subsequent runs, allowing you to grow stronger and learn new skills in preparation for the next showdown. You fight against AI-controlled characters, skeletons and zombies and ethereal bugs. But the main difference here is that aside from being only available on the weekends (silly, I know), each Showdown chapter culminates in an epic and punishing boss encounter.
With a few different chapters currently available and more being added every few months (with new characters, maps and weapons), Hell: Blade Point‘s Showdown mode pits you against some really insane idiots. Take Omnius, a warrior with black armor and a flaming sword who is both fast and powerful. Get hit by this guy a few times and you’re dead – he’s got a huge health pool, tons of defensive ability thanks to his armor, and rarely lets up on his fiery attack. He’s almost like a Souls boss in that regard. And that’s just a boss. The game consists of three different chapters with three different bosses to fight. Lots to do outside of the main BR.
Continue reading: Hell: Blade Pointas told by Steam reviews
It’s hard to buy another battle royale when you’re already invested in one. It’s even harder when the game like Hell: Blade Point, has complicated mechanics that require constant practice to get good at. You will die many times, but as the saying goes, it will always get worse before it gets better. And while it’s easy to write this off as just another typical battle royale title, Hell: Blade PointThe unique melee combat, grappling hook movement, and rich PvE story easily make it one of the coolest games in the genre.
