Mordhau (video game)

Outside of gameplay, the player can edit and create mercenaries for most game modes. When creating or editing, the player can change their mercenary's body type, face, and voice for cosmetic purposes. Editing things like armor, weapons, and perks cost in-game points. Depending on what type of armor the player has it can affect the movement speed of the player like how wearing heavier armor will make the player move slower and cost more points, while there are only three levels of armor there are also cosmetic variations for armor. All weapons point values are roughly determined by the size of weapon as a light dagger would not be as costly as a heavy hammer. The perk system will grant the mercenary various passive abilities at the cost of points, which scale based on how ideally useful the perks are.[7]

• Frontline: In this game mode, up to 48 players form into two teams. Each team starts with 1000 points, and competes with the other team to earn more points by fighting each other, capturing opposing territory and completing the team's objectives. For every enemy defeated, the other team loses a point. Capturing central or enemy territory reduces the opposing team's points. However, completing the team's objective will instantly end the game in favor of whichever team completed their objective.[8]

• Invasion: In this game mode, up to 48 players form into two teams, with one team acting as attackers and the other as defenders. The defenders must protect key objectives while the attackers must complete them to advance further. Once objectives are captured, the defenders must fall back to defend the next objective. The game is on a timer, which increases when the attackers secure an objective. The defenders win if the timer runs down to zero, while the attackers win if all objectives are completed within that time.

• Battle Royale: In this game mode, 64 players compete against each other in a free-for-all match. When a player is defeated, they will lose the game and not spawn again. The last player standing will be the winner. At the start of the game, all players will spawn without weapons or armor. They must seek out chests containing equipment in order to increase their chance of survival. To avoid stalemates, a ring surrounds the entire map, and will slowly shrink to bring the players closer to each other. The game mode was, however taken down.[8]

• Horde: In this game mode, a small team of players is pitted against waves of computer-controlled enemies that will get increasingly harder each wave. Players will start with no weapons or armor, and their health will not regenerate normally. To regenerate health and earn weapons, the player must defeat the enemies and survive the round. Defeating an enemy will award the player a quarter of their health and currency. Completing a wave will refill the players health and award currency. Currency is used to purchase weapons and armor. All purchasable equipment is scattered all over the map, needing the player to have extensive knowledge of places like item locations.[8]

• Skirmish: This game is in the form of a team deathmatch; however, when a player is defeated, they will not spawn for the rest of the round. The last team standing will win the round. and play will continue until one team has won 7 rounds. As of the removal of Battle Royale, this mode is now available through the Brawl option of the fight menu [8]

• Deathmatch: This game mode has everyone fight against each other with no teams or in a free-for-all. The first player to score the target amount of kills will win the game. Many Deathmatch servers are duel-only (private) servers, where two players must emote at each other to initiate a duel, the emote used most often is the Flourish emote which is a basic sword twirl. Ever since the removal of Battle Royale, Deathmatch is available through the Brawl option of the fight menu[8]

• Team Deathmatch: This game mode is similar to deathmatch, except that the player will form two even teams and will compete for the most kills of players on the other team. As with Deathmatch and Skirmish, it is available through the Brawl option of the fight menu[8]

Mordhau has a score of 81 on Metacritic based on 21 critic reviews.[16] Prior to release, Mordhau received praise from early reviewers for its fighting system, the chaotic but fun gameplay, and its graphics.[4][23]

Reviewers enjoyed the game's intricate fighting system. James Swinbanks of GameSpot called it a "strategic, punishing and ultimately satisfying" video game.[24] Destructoid's Patrick Hancock found it "exciting to find efficient and unique combos" that led to players developing their own unique play style.[25] IGN's Samuel Horti enjoyed the "feeling of constant skill progression" as he gradually learnt the game's mechanics through experience and video tutorials.[26] Javy Gwaltney of Game Informer shared this feeling, saying that "every increment of improvement is rewarded with spectacular displays of violence".[27] However, GameSpot and IGN also shared the belief that the game's in-game tutorial could have done a better job of explaining the game's mechanics to new players. Swinbanks wrote that Mordhau did not provide adequate feedback to strikes, which made the game feel like a "slow, merciless grind of death after death" as you learned how to play.[24] Horti wished that the game's tutorial would help him "learn by playing instead of turning to YouTube guides".[26] T.J. Hafer from PC Gamer worried that the game's complexity might alienate players who wanted to play a supporting role in battle, stating that Mordhau "doesn’t support that playstyle especially well".[28]

Mordhau became a success, selling 200,000 copies in less than a week,[14] then exceeding 500,000 copies sold by 7 May. It reached the top of the Steam sales charts.[29] Triternion apologized after its servers could not sustain the massive influx of players.[23] About a month after its release, Mordhau had sold 1 million copies; to celebrate, the developers released a new map alongside new weapons and cosmetics.[30]