As if shanking someone in the face wasn’t brutal enough, Early Access battle simulator Blade & Sorcery just got a little more gory with the new U9 update which landed on Friday.

Developers WarpFrog say that the U9 content is “essentially the 8.4 beta as a now completed and stable version.” If you haven’t played any of the beta content past 8.3, you may be in for a surprise.

In U9, WarpFrog has completely reworked character decals and added a few more bits and bobs to increase realism. You’ll find new wound and blood splatter effects, armor-denting effects, burn decals, and a new and enhanced revival of the U7 death animations.

YouTuber ‘The Baron’ gives us a good look at a bunch of the 8.4 beta, which is admittedly only a little more buggy than the full U9 release.

Outside of the immediate increase in gory realism, players also have wound decals that can be dispelled by applying healing potions. Player avatars and baddies also have exit wounds now too—which in the grand scheme of things is probably the least disconcerting thing about the grizzly (albeit fun) gladiator sim.

A new survival game mode is also live now too, which lets you choose from randomly generated weapons that spawn with the pedestal and survive waves of ragdoll baddies.

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WarpFrog says a larger ‘Dungeons Expansion’ is likely coming in U11, which of course has no clear release date yet. The studio calls it “its own huge update.”

There’s heaps more info on the U9 update over at the game’s changelog, which you’ll find on SteamBlade & Sorcery is only available on PC VR headsets. You can find it over on Steam and the Oculus Store for Oculus PC headsets.

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Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • Graham J ⭐️

    So you didn’t try it.

  • wheeler

    The two main things I’d like to see out of this game are:

    (1) Compelling combat AI – The dev has a very interesting and innovative physics based combat model but the combat itself is rather straightforward. The enemies are only really challenging in large numbers but one on one you can largely just apply the same attack/trick over and over again. What would really interest me is a focus on an AI combat model that provides challenging, long duration 1 on 1 combat. This is an extremely difficult problem that is compounded by the free form nature of the combat but this is also the perfect context for this kind of experimentation.

    (2) Some sort of rogue-like/-lite game mode – This is a good way of keeping the game interesting without going down the rabbit hole that is experimental free form combat AI.

    It looks like something like (2) is on the roadmap (“randomly generated levels”, though I don’t know if this means there will be actual progression with the levels, ala In Death). (1) would require some serious time commitment and innovation but is an area where an indie dev can really offer something (I expect other developers will start incorporating combat models that are increasingly similar to this over the next few years–but with actual progression, linear narratives, lots of content, etc etc). There is “improved AI” on the Update 12 portion of the roadmap but I don’t know to what extent they’re going to take it.

  • Zack71

    Well, I hope Dungeon Mode will arrive soon
    I can’t play a game if I haven’t a goal.
    Dynamics of B&S are perfect, now it’s time of level design.
    B&S could be the Quake of VR.

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  • Bonnie Jones

    sss

  • Clownworld14

    Game needs multiplayer asap

    • Wally Gee

      I agree.