Half Sword

Steam Reviews

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• Recommended Posted February 21, 2026 on Steam If you loved the demo for this game and are wondering why Early Access is getting mixed reviews, I think I can explain some of it. A lot of people, myself included, start out confused about why their character can’t even walk 4 feet without face-planting and leaving themselves open to attack. It feels clunky and frustrating at first. The big difference is that the devs made the early progression way harder than it was in the demo. In the demo, you could win a few fights, beat the boss, and move up a tier pretty quickly. In Early Access, there’s more going on that the game doesn’t really explain. They added a strength mechanic. When you first start, you’re basically a scrawny beggar with no power because of your flimsy arms and legs. As you fight and burn through stamina, you slowly build strength. And I mean slowly. Once you build enough strength, things start to click. I recommend sparring and making sure you’re actually draining your stamina during fights so you level that up. After that, winning fights and progressing feels much more doable, and you can start looting the people you take down along the way. (grab them with Q and then hold Q to peel armor/clothing off the enemy) Another big complaint has been the abyss. I wasn’t a fan at first either. But they’ve added ways to avoid being sent there. If instead of fully killing enemies you can force them to surrender by holding the tip of your weapon to their neck, that way your soul is pure. You can also pay the shady guy in the back of the tavern at night 10 gold per soul you’ve taken. Just make sure you do it before you die. If you haven’t killed anyone, you don’t need to pay at all. So when you eventually catch a sword to the neck, your soul is safe. Otherwise, the people you’ve killed show up as zombies in the abyss, and in my experience they’re ridiculously hard to take down. Honestly, what this game really needs is a proper tutorial. A lot of people are jumping in expecting it to feel like the demo, and it just doesn’t. Once I understood how the strength system and the abyss worked, I actually started having a lot of fun progressing through the tiers. Anyway, that’s just my two cents on Half Sword EA. Thanks for reading.
• Recommended Posted February 1, 2026 on Steam Devs are taking the feedback seriously, so I have no doubt the games many issues mentioned elsewhere will be resolved soon. I love the game as it stands on a gameplay level and cant wait to see how it ultimately shakes out
• Recommended Posted January 30, 2026 on Steam The game is good and very fun but runs pretty terribly at the lowest settings i can hardly get 50 fps while fighting in the slums with a RTX 4070 SUPER, Ryzen 7 7800X3D, and 32 GB of DDR5. IMO, wait for a performance patch
• Not recommended Posted May 20, 2026 on Steam No updates or fixes in months. Game is still terribly optimized and crashes frequently. I really liked this game, but there is no reason to buy it in this abandoned state, just play the demo.
• Not recommended Posted April 11, 2026 on Steam It's been over 3 months since release and no meaningful updates...
• Not recommended Posted March 5, 2026 on Steam Let me be clear that I adore Half Sword. I had an embarrassing amount of time put into the Demo alone and was very excited for the full release. But as the game is, I cannot recommend it to others because of a select few glaring issues. I will talk about the positives first. THE GOOD - Combat flows from many different stances, as is the core principle of HEMA. The combat itself feels visceral and dynamic and the current EA progression system is decently rewarding. - There are many different weapon and armor types and variations, making the game very versatile. - Mastering you character depends on how you want to play. You could deck out in heavy armor, or go lighter for less protection but more speed. - Weapons can be heavily customized when crafting them, allowing for different playstyles even with the same weapon type! Now, the negatives, and why I won't be recommending this game. GAME BREAKING ISSUES - EDITED as of 3/29: FOUR TIMES now I have had my save info wiped, without any warning or specific reason. I have done every fix recommended to me by the Developers and nothing has worked. I am quite literally not able to invest time into this game if I cannot even PLAY it or have faith it'll save my info. I have even tried a BACKUP and it hasn't restored my data. JANKY COMBAT - Posture is a tremendous issue; in its current state, the game is a falling simulator. A brush is enough to make your character topple; if your character decides he doesn't want to try getting up, he just won't; and you'd think with enemies constantly striking you on the floor they'd give you the option to roll to either side, but your only defense is pathetically raising your arms halfway if you're knocked over. - Blocking attacks is subpar and often doesn't work due to the auto-block system, which cannot be disabled. - Stabs do not work. For such an integral part of HEMA, it's wild to me that this is a direct downgrade from the demo. Stabs veer left or right, and almost never hit center. GLARING TECHNICAL ISSUES - There's no ability to calibrate your mouse so that it's consistent with game mechanics. If your DPI is any higher than 1500, good luck playing, 0 sensitivity isn't even enough to make you swing at a reasonable pace. If we could calibrate our mice so the swing becomes controlled, that would be excellent, maybe accounting for different locations on the mousepad. - All sensitivity is controlled with a bar slider and can't be numerically input. So if you ever lose your settings, good luck returning to whatever sens you had before. This has been a huge issue as I like to adjust mine to the right fit. - Performance is really REALLY butt right now. I am running a 5060ti and am getting pretty substantial frame drops on low settings. The environment itself is incredibly performance heavy, and while I admire the devs for being so detailed, there are ways to be detailed without crushing smaller rigs. I can't swing a sword at 30fps on a computer that offers upwards of 300fps. IN CONCLUSION Overall this is a great concept with poor execution. The game as-is, I cannot recommend, mainly for the save data wiping bug. I've sunk nearly 40 hours in recently and lost every single one due to it. Maybe that's not hundreds of hours but it is *my* time, and I value that what I'm paying for weighs up to the time I spend playing it. I wish the Dev team good luck - and with some time and work, this game could become a masterpiece, but right now I can't recommend it.