Naraka:
Bladepoint

Naraka: Bladepoint (2021) is an online fighting game where 60 players take on martial arts weapons and moves to be the last person standing. It takes the battle royale game in a sword-battling direction where heroes can pull off gravity-defying mobility, and use vast arsenals of melee and ranged weapons as well as their own abilities.

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You play on your own or in teams of three, choosing your hero based on their special abilities. To get started you need to hunt down and collect different weapons, defensive and movement items. All the while you need to be careful not to be ambushed.

When you find another group or person combat is often in close quarters, however, you need to be careful to assess what your enemy has before rushing in. You need to carefully use your different (standard, special, combo and charge) attacks carefully. Here, the game is more like a single-player combat title, allowing you to read tells from other players' movements as well as find a rhythm with your movement and offensive moves.

Teams can use their special attacks in combination. For example, you may have the ability to become invisible and then aid your teammates by combatting enemies from behind. It's these cleverly designed abilities and their combinations in teams that really makes this game stand out.

If you are knocked down other players can revive you to avoid death becoming permanent. As is the way with battle royale games, as time passes the playable area in the game steadily shrinks, leaving a small group to fight it out to be the winners.

Out now on PC, coming to PS5 and Xbox.

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Our examiner, Andy Robertson, first checked Naraka: Bladepoint 2 years ago. It was re-examined by Jo Robertson and updated 9 months ago.