On Steam, up to 9,000 players simultaneously tested the realism-snatching medieval knight sim
Not all players appreciated the „joke” of Half Sword's devs, but many threw themselves into testing the updated demo version.
More than 9,000 people were simultaneously playing Half Sword following the update of the demo, which lets you experience being a medieval knight. With all its charms (and flaws).
The demo version of the game from Half Sword Games studio is by no means something new on Valve's platform. The developers released a demo in October 2023, but initially, the "peak" of the game was just over 2.5 thousand s at the same time. Not a bad result, although not overly impressive for a demo.
Since then, Half Sword has also had several major tests (the last one ended on April 2nd). These drew in a few more people ("peak": 4795 players), but it was only after the recent "playtests" that players enthusiastically flocked to the demo version, where a record number of Steam s played at the same time yesterday: 9181 people (via SteamDB).
This is mainly due to the significant expansion of the Half Sword demo by abandoning the previous "playtests" and incorporating their content into the demo version. Moreover, the developers introduced new gameplay modes (Gauntlet, where after dying the character is sent to the Abyss, and dying there leads to loss of progress, and Free Mode featuring nearly all noble titles), along with an updated Abyss.
At first, an early "build" was released without any announcements as an April Fool's joke - although not all players were amused to the fullest (which didn't escape the developer's notice).
What exactly is Half Sword? In a nutshell, it is a single-player knight simulator that underlines the immersion and realism of battles, thanks to the ability to precisely control weapons and the faithfully recreated historical elements of armor and weaponry. The creators worked together with practitioners of historical European martial arts (HEMA) and fencers to develop a system that allows players to control their weapons with a mouse in a way that is not available in other titles.
Of course, realism also means a considerable dose of brutality (let's say that characters sometimes "lose" a hand, leg, or even a head) and permanent death. Many players were looking for such challenges, although internet s point out the need to refine the whole thing before Half Sword launches on Steam this year.
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