Mordhau is a precise, strategic medieval combat game where at its core can be a fun if not challenging experience, only somewhat let down by high ranking players who exploit and abuse attack animations and mechanics that make it a total nightmare for new and experienced players. This is a problem the developers who were fans of Chivalry, a game that had the exact same issues wanted to address and fix have not bothered with over the span of 4 years since the initial release. This in turn has forced newcomers and long existing players to back out of the experience. To be clear I'm not bashing the combat system overall as when you're in confrontation with players who play skillfully and fairly, it really is engaging, testing and fun. Another primary reason for people abandoning the game is due to a lack of regular content updates and the reported toxicity of the community over the years (I kept my chat box off from the start for a reason.)


So apart from the odd frustrations, there are good aspects to Mordhau. You can customize your own "mercenaries" where you can create unique and stylized soldiers with different weapons, armour sets, utilities, traits and feature options. If you've been playing a long time, you'll know the most iconic character is a bald, naked man wielding a maul yelling "charge!" in a high pitched, Foppish voice. Maps are interesting, immersive and well designed, ranging from the narrow cities of Feitoria where close quarter battles are more fierce to the open land of the Crossroads.

In regards to player interactions (I've only played on official servers), people can be outright hilarious at times which is one of the reasons I kept playing. The exchange of apt emote responses, amusing interactions with enemies and allies, and the bards who play some banging tunes that we can dance to. So it's not all bad when you can hop into a server where everyone can make the experience a good time.