Game Review: Dividing and Conquering in Conquerors Blade

Hello Everyone! Logan here again, and today I am going to be talking about the Massively Multiplayer Online game Conquerors Blade: a strategic medieval action game in which players compete in objective gameplay as heroes with martial units supporting them in battle.

Now the first thing people tend to think about when it comes to the term “MMO” is the RPG, ability heavy games like World of Warcraft, Archeage, and Final Fantasy. While an MMO, Conquerors Blade strays away from the traditional formula of long grinds, leveling up and story-driven aspects a lot of MMO’s share in today’s industry. Conquerors Blade is an experience that is built not by its world, but the players within it.

My experience in Conquerors Blade began when my friend and colleague introduced me to the game as he was supporting the game in it’s earlier beta stages. When it fully launched I had the experience to play the game alongside him and another one of our friends we convinced to play with us.

Getting Started

After a cinematic and enjoyable tutorial that brought us into the game, we were very quickly introduced to the game’s systems: characters have different attacks and abilities based on the class they picked: these weapons range from the heavily armored and versatile poleaxe to the medium armored musket fighter, and the lightly armored, assassin like Dual Blades class. These weapons can be switched to on the fly and with their respective armors, and there are ten classes in total. Beyond that, the game puts you in control of a medium-sized group of soldiers: these can range from eastern or western-styled swordsman or spearman, or the lighter armored but ranged units like muskets and bows, or even to the heavier cavalry based lance units. Beyond this, the game breaks units up into technology trees, such as the “chivalry” tree, which features European soldiers such as knights, the man at arms, and spear sergeants.

Of course, this wouldn’t be a game without a sense of progression: Conquerors Blade moves you through a set of “ages” to unlock more units, by unlocking four of the units from the previous age. This allows you to spread your wings a bit and play around with different kinds of troops and soldiers. In the first 60 levels of the game (The time it took me to truly become part of the game’s world) I found myself learning the smaller intricacies.

Fighting Other Players

In the competitive aspect, I found that by myself, I am fairly weak. You cannot be the Viking on the bridge of Stanford, fighting by yourself and staving off the enemy hordes. You need to be the Spartans: you need to work with your teammates to hold the line against the enemy if you want to succeed. By myself, my single little rifle isn’t enough to take on a horde of swordsman led by a spear-wielding general. However, when my friend with his Longsword and Shield stands beside me, and we set up my archers behind a line of his spear and shield men, we are fully capable of taking on multiple enemies at once with a wall of wood, steel, and rain of pain.

The world of conquerors blade is divided into three core regions: The Western Region and the Eastern region, which are separated by a central region called “the borderlands”. The Western region, primarily European in Aesthetic, is the equivalent version of the Western culture we see as the game takes on this idea of “East vs. West” Medieval warfare. And of course, this world if populated with towns, cities, fortresses, and castles. These towns are held by large noble houses, or “guilds” as they are known in other games, and alliances of these houses hold large territories linked together.

Guilds

After hitting level forty-five or so, my friend convinced me to join a house he found himself invited to, and the process for joining said the house was really something: I was interviewed, asked about my past relations with other houses, and even asked about my activity in the game. After joining the house with my friend, together we participated in a twice-weekly event called “the territory war”: a one hour period in which houses can declare war on each other and attack each other’s territories to seize control of the region and the resources within it. And this event is what brings them life, to Conquerors blade: the territories wars spark politics, conflict, relations, it is it’s own living breathing ecosystem within the game that brings players to interact in their own little war they can look forward to on Tuesday and Saturday nights.

Now I sit at around level eighty, have participated in maybe seven territory wars thus far in the last month and I can’t find any negative experiences I have had. Save for a few balance issues with the game’s classes, I don’t feel useless in the game as a newer player: I am able to coordinate with teammates, work together to take castles and towns, I have even been on a leading attack force to take a series of towns from a rival alliance. The alliances have helped me make new friends online in this game, and the community around it, while small, is strong.

Now, for the harder part to talk about: monetization. As a free to play MMO, the game has some small microtransactions: name changes, character changes, a few experience points boost, the like, but none of it feels necessary to play. It’s not like paying money will help you win the game, but rather, a player who spends no money on the game has the better chances of winning if they have more playtime to a person who just spends money on the game.

If you want to give Conquerors blade, you can find it now on their website, https://cb.my.com/en or on their Steam page, at https://store.steampowered.com/app/905370/Conquerors_Blade/.