Chivalry 2 is designed to make you feel like you’re in a medieval war

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It’s been nearly 15 years since a group of friends got together to create a free Half-Life 2 mod that turned the dystopian Valve classic into a medieval-themed melee brawler. Age of Chivalry was released in 2007 as a total conversion mod of Half-Life 2 by a group calling itself Team Chivalry.

Some of that team made a huge leap forward in 2010, shifting to Unreal Engine and forming Torn Banner Studios to start development on Chivalry: Medieval Warfare.

The studio’s first release delivered a melee combat masterpiece that asked a lot of players and was painfully difficult to master, but also drew a dedicated fanbase thanks to its ultra-intense multiplayer gameplay. After a palette cleansing change with magic-infused combat with the release of Mirage: Arcane Warfare in 2017, the studio got back to work on its first love: chivalric combat.

Chivalry 2 promises to return players to a medieval battlefield with all of the intensity and combat precision of the original title, but now infused with epic 64-player cinematic battlefields, castle sieges, and a revamped combat system that is easy to pick up but hard to master.

We chatted with Torn Banner’s Alex Hayter about the studio’s transformative journey, striking the razor’s edge balance of tuned melee combat, and the vision the group has for this hotly anticipated sequel.

To read the rest of this feature, which first ran on April 8, 2021, visit UnrealEngine.