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 formidable opponents.
Immerse yourself in the rich tapestry of history with our meticulously crafted collection of historically accurate arms and armor. Experience the diverse and vibrant array of armor from history, offering players an authentic glimpse into the past.
Become the champion of the Arena by besting your opponents in various brawls and tournaments. Prepare for an unparalleled combat experience where your every move matters. All animations and maneuvers are meticulously designed with a strong foundation in realism.
Your control over weapons is genuine, as we have crafted a combat system based on the expertise and feedback of Historical European Martial Arts (HEMA) practitioners and sword fencers. Through this dynamic system, players can immerse themselves in the intricacies of swordplay and learn the art of the game's combat mechanics.
Survive bloody battles to gain renown and claim wealth to buy new equipment or forge your own armor and weapons tailored to your combat style. Feeling confident? Bet on your success to potentially boost your earnings and further your progress.
Every story needs an end, and in Half Sword, it often means losing your head - quite literally. As this is a simulation game, death is final…
Be Warned: Half Sword is an extremely violent and gory game. I mean… we do have a Chief Blood Officer. Witness skull-crushing blows, limb decapitations, and gruesome displays of entrails and bloodshed, all intricately tied to the weapon and armor choices of both you and your opponents.
Screenshots
11 images
Version Information
Steam Patch Notes
Official update history
Hi everyone!
No new content as we're focusing on 0.6.2, but a Quality of Life & Balancing patch thanks to your feedbacks. We know we say no more patch but... feels like it should help you having fun while waiting for the big one!
Patch notes 0.6.1.5
Abyss
Reworked Zombies. They are weaker in some things but stronger in others. Biting is weaker, but they swing their arms better when unarmed. Also they try to crawl towards you more effectively when their legs are broken and overall more balanced. Also more of them spawn at the same time
Coffin in Abyss nerfed, shouldnt be annoying anymore
Bone breaking and dismemberment turned off for player in Abyss
Physics & Combat
Reworked how death works for player. Now you can control your character to his last breath. That also means you have more chances to give up before dying. Even if you are cut in half, you still dont die instantly. Also its harder to die in Abyss again
Enemies grab less often,
Game generated greatswords are more sane in size and more historically accurate,
Greatswords for Blossfechten are optional, set in game settings,
Crossbow is now the best it ever was. Very reliable, easy to aim (relatively), well balanced against armor,
Fallen bodies are made heavier, dead weight should feel more like dead weight. Let us know if grappling feels worse like this
Reworked weapon sfx,
Draw cutting should be much better and effective,
Weapons now get stuck in wooden surfaces,
Nerfed base blunt damage,
Nerfed naked fists damage,
Nerfed Pollaxe shaft damage,
Bone dislocation in armor is a little harder, bone dislocation while standing is a little harder
Some more stuff, Ai tweaks, Physics tweaks
Settings
Added Camera Settings. They are vast, try yourself,
FPV Camera offset for every helmet, now you will see form the slits (better),
Added slider for fallen body weight scale. In Game Settings,
Added slider for FPV FOV,
Minimum damage value on the slider changed to 1% (from 10%),
Split Screen -- disabled hair for split screen mode, because they caused crashes. Disabled Volumetric clouds for split screen, because they caused visual glitch for player 2 cam. Split screen should work properly now,
Added option to disable hair in general -- if your game still constantly crashes this might help. In Game Settings,
Gameplay settings such as Bone Fragility and Dead Weight kick in instantly and doesn't need restarting the round anymore,
Thanks again for all the feedback, we hope that solve some of your issues and we will continue to fix the others in the future.
Hey hey hey!
Just like the last time we have uploaded a bit outdated version of patch (new one was sent to testing when this one was uploading) So lets call THIS patch 0.6.1.4.(1)
I will write all the changes for 0.6.1.4 and 0.6.1.4.(1) here together:
Tweaked bone snapping, should be much more stable. Not completely stable, naturally, its Half Sword after all. But much better
Added Bone Fragility slider to Gore Setting. It affects both bone dislocation and breaking bones by impact. Turning it down completely will turn off bone snapping, while "bone breaking" will be just twice harder. Turning it up to the max will give you glass bones. Enjoy
Added Greatswords! You can craft them in Swords tab. Available size of the sword depends on your rank. Greatswords will also spawn starting from Veteran Tier (rarely on Soldier Tier)
Added Longswords and Arming Swords to spawn list on Commoner tier
Added Blossfechten Combat Scenario to the Progression Mode. Only swords and clothes! You need to have at least one sword equipped (in hands or belt) to enter. The UI banner depicting armored combatants is a placeholder, it will be changed
Added Blossfechten modifier to the Free Mode. Now you can have unarmored combat independent from the skill of the fighters. In Free Mode you can use any weapons in Blossfechten
Brawling and Carnage modifiers can work together in Free Mode. Blossfechten modifier negates Brawling though
Added ability to choose random gear in the inventory in Free Mode
Added option to switch to Classic Alt Thrust controls in the Controls Settings. It will make Classic Alt Thrust to work on alt key hold and Thumb Grip on toggle
Added option for Classic Halfswording controls in options (when u just press RMB). In case anyone doesnt understand how it works with new controls, you need to hold down both RMB and LMB
Made Crossbows more reliable. Tweaked animations for better aiming and reloading, collision detection of bolts is much better, they will not fail so often. Simplified reloading for now, you dont need to drag bolts to crossbow in UI, just click the bolt in the quiver. Will rework that later
Reworked AI again, should be even more responsive and fun
Made fighting from the ground better
When choking enemies they will fight back
Fixed Collisions on new axe heads
Smoother dismemberments, fixed collisions
Fixed explosive damage when you grab someones arm while they are holding shields
Less random explosive damage in general
Less damage on body slamming (for less random headbutting)
Fixed bugs
Some more stuff
Now, this is (((definitely))) the final patch before next big update, 6.2. Hope it will give you enough to play with while we work on some big features < 3
Patch notes 0.6.1.4
Hello! Thank you for breaking so many bones already. This patch is aiming to tune this new feature based on your feedbacks, on top of various asks from the community:
Bone snapping tuned, added Bone Fragility slider to Gore settings
IMPORTANT: Bone Fragility settings don't kick in instantly. Character spawned after you changed the settings will have them applied.
Gear randomization in Free Mode Inventory. UI will be changed at some point
Made fighting from ground more effective
AI will try to fight back when u choke them
Pain makes AI give up, so breaking limbs will end the fight for them
Made crossbows more reliable, tweaked animations for better aiming and reloading. Simplified reload for now, you dont need to drag the bolt, just click it to load. More works on this coming later
Added ability to forge really big swords
Added Longswords and Arming swords to - Commoner tier equipment
Fixed various bugs
differences are:
- Breaking limbs on picking up objects fixed. Still be careful when picking up heavy objects,
- Heads meshes clipping fixed,
- Match setup on Begin Play was flawed, respawnable objects spawned too late, you could fall through bridge if the bridge was broken in previous round, stuff like that. Also Level loading is a bit faster.,
- Fixed some issues with sheathing/unsheathing weapons. Including breaking limbs in process.,
- Unknown force pulling a body on torso dismemberment partially fixed, should happen less.,
- Barrels being unbreakable with weapons fixed,
- All armor materials and color available at Armorer despite the rank fixed,
- Breaking limbs by just grabbing should happen less,
Also things not included in previous post:
- Armor attachments material customization (WIP),
- 2 new visored sallets, 1 old sallet from demo (didn't add it to spawn list in last patch),
- Opponents' weapons selection in Free Mode,
- Better grabbing/grappling,
- Painted shields (not new shields, old ones but now they are painted). Each one is a masterpiece drawn by one of our artists, Filippo. Now you can take some art with you in the battle,
- Excessive hips rotation on low framerate fixed,
- Crashes on knocking off helmets fixed,
- Further graphics and physics optimization,
- Some other stuff
Patch notes 0.6.1.3
Alley map optimization and making barrels physics logic more elegant
Added rocks u can pick up. Randomly thrown on all exterior maps
New Shields and Pavises
Joint dislocation, snapping bones by pulling and twisting, snapping neck, back, arms, legs. Planning to add ability to tear them off as well
Neck grab doesn’t snap from so far. Now you can grab heads again if you aim well
Made body slamming make more damage. Using other Willie’s as weapons, using their severed arms and legs to bonk their friends, and ramming them: all of this is much better at cost of their bodies doing damage to you as well
AI self preservation should be better. They will still aggressively push you but the will parry, riposte, sidestep and back step more often
OG Willie is back! You can select his lovely face during Character Creation and he will also spawn randomly in Free Mode
Thank you for all your feedback on this update. We will gladly continue reading them as we're now going full speed on... 6.2! See you soon...
Patch notes 0.6.1.2
Fixed Height and Weight sliders resetting to wrong values after reentering Inventory
Added Height and Weight sliders for the opponents in Free Mode. They are multipliers, so a Knight with full Weight will still have more muscles than a Beggar with full Weight
Fixed Alt Thrust modes/stances switching. Holding Alt Thrust key gets you to Thumb Grip (as it was), tapping Alt Thrust key toggles Classic Thrust (as it was). From Classic Thrust releasing mouse button momentarily will bring you back to Swing Mode. From Classic Thrust holding down Alt Thrust key switches to Thumb Grip. Fixed toggle not working correctly.
Made grabbing throats much easier. Now character will prefer to grab throat over any other part of body if you aim somewhere around throat area. Now choking is maybe too OP
Added back 2 helmets missing since Demo
Also removed momentary noclip from weapons on unsheathe. Now you can samurai
Some other stuff
Have fun, keep that feedback coming!
Tried to address here as much of it as I could and added some things on top from myself.
Patch 0.6.1.1
- Reduced run speed. Faster than 6.0, slower than 6.1,
- Less equipped characters are much less likely to rush a better equipped opponent,
- Returned classic Al Thrust. Tapping Alt Thrust key will now toggle Classic Alt Thrust, while holding it down brings you to New Thrust Mode (thumb grip),
- Added Brawling option to Free Mode. Currently it doesn't work together with Carnage because how Level Manager sets up fight (these two are two different modes for it). So choose one at a time,
- Height and Weight sliders for Free Mode expanded. You can be very very small or very very big now.,
- Fixed (hopefully) lighting in Forrest map. It was good on my machine but I saw that it was too dark for others.,
- Made sword pommels and guards more effective for striking to make Mordhau grip even deadlier.,
- Knives and other bladed weapons that I forgot to set up correctly for reverse gripping should work properly now. Vertical reverse grip,
- Disabled Wood Tint and Leather Color options in Weapon Forge temporarily. They didn't work with new materials, but once they are set up correctly they gonna be back,
- Leather Straps can be dyed in Armor Customization menu now. Materials were not set up correctly before, now it should work,
- Blued Steel should apply correctly to armors now,
- Added an option to reset your game completely at the Innkeeper. We still don't have multiple save file support yet, we will add it later. Now total reset will delete your current save file so better back it up.,
- You can strangle people to death now. First they lose consciousness and if you keep choking them they die, It takes time,
- Fixed bug when character loses weapon but thinks they still have it (hopefully fixed),
- Some other stuff
In this new hotfix, we focused on blood optimization, alongside other performance improvements.
Blood:
Reworked blood with partial implementation of in-house next gen blood system (RT Blood) that should offer better performances alongside more realistic environment interaction. This include:
- New Wall decals splatters,
- New floors decals splatters,
- Better blood particles on weapons trails,
- New and more optimized particle behavior,
- RT blood splatters are now spawning in a much more responsive rate,
- Some fluid blood particle were removed for now for performance and are being worked on
Overall, do not forget that Blood settings can be adjusted for amount of blood force, particles, overall decal amount!
Other:
- Messer hilts redesigned,
- Various minor optimizations,
To talk a bit about the future, next update will not be a hotfix but a bigger patch, including new content. We're tackling stuff that require more work, and thus will require more time. We thank for your patience as we keep improving the game during its Early Access.
Thank you again for your support and patience,
Half Sword team
In this quick hotfix, we focused on some bugs that appeared with the previous physics changes:
Physics
- Muscle progression wasn't always triggered when spending stamina; it is now fixed
- Stealing an enemy weapon was sometimes not updating for the weapon's owner, and this forbade you from hitting the enemy with it. It is now fixed.
- Unsheathing your weapons now should feel less janky
Optimization
- Applied more foliage optimization to outdoor maps
Balancing, Weapons & Armors
- Added gambesons to the Peasant tier
Sorry for the inconvenience, and we shall see you very soon for more fixes and tweaks.
Thank you again for your support and patience,
Half Sword team
In this hotfix we started looking at your feedback on physics + rolled some additional fixes on the AMD blood polling, as it seems some AMD GPUs were still impacted:
Physics
- Lowered character physics substepping intervals. Expected results: better physics precision. Character control and combat should feel better.
- Disabled collision between character and their weapons. Weapons should less get stuck during combat and longer weapons shouldn't cause wielder to fall over when stuck.
- Kicking is now possible when you are on the ground
Blood
- Lowered gravity effect on blood particles, now they fly around more dramatically and are more noticable.
- Reworked decals spawning
- Fixed more AMD blood polling bug.
Optimization
- Cleaned up various materials
Localization
- Fixed special characters in various languages which weren't part of the font
Let us know on how you feel about those changes, and in the meantime we will continue working on improving the game,
Thank you again for your support and patience,
Half Sword team
In this hotfix we focused on the outdoor maps, as it seems to cause you a lot of troubles, and did some more blood optimization on performance.
In this third hotfix you could find:
- Further foliage optimization, notably on Forest and Slums map
- Blood optimization
- Slums map colliders set up correctly. Now you the round end properly when you go out of map
- You can talk your enemies into submission via the taunt mechanic, NPCs will react
- Minor bug fixes
We're aware that some of you still have the blood splatering issue on AMD cards and are working on it as fast as we can.
And of course, we continue the work on other fixes, tunning, and feedback implementation.
Thank you again for your support and patience,
Half Sword team
Here's a small update addressing some of the frustrations you mentioned in the previous build:
- Falling down is now harder
- Getting up is faster
- Rebalanced damage, more damage to vital organs, less to non vital,
- Improved stabbing with polearms, they don't fly away from your hands now
- Slightly rebalanced certain weapons, nerfed warstaff's damage against armor (sorry, it was way too overpowered)
____________________________________________________________
About Fatal Crashes:
We’re aware of the fatal crashes, especially during the Baron fight. These issues stem from a third-party Unreal Engine plugin we’ve been using for some of the blood and gore effects.
While we initially tried to debug it, we’ve hit its limitations. That’s why we’re now developing our own in-house solution, which will be ready for the Early Access release — offering both improved stability and next-level wounds for you to inflict on poor Willie.
_____________________________________________________________
Thanks again for the tremendous support, we still can’t believe how big Half Sword has gotten, and it’s not even out yet!
Half Sword Games & Game Seer
Current Release
Build 23981082
Uploaded Jul 03, 2026
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System Requirements
How to Install
HalfSwordUE5.exe to play
Troubleshooting tips
• Run Redist/_CommonRedist installers if game won't start
• Add folder to Windows Defender exclusions
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9.5 GB
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