Sharpen your blades, hone your skills, and time your strikes in Die By The Blade! Read our review to see what it did well, what it didn't do well, and if it's worth buying.
Die By The Blade Review Overview
What is Die By The Blade?
Die By The Blade is a one vs one weapon-based fighting game where getting hit means death. Choose a character and weapon that suit your playstyle and fight to the death in several "samuraipunk-themed" locations like neon-filled alleys, ancient forests, dojos, and more. Battle your friends in local multiplayer or try your hand at being the best against unknown warriors in online ranked matches and tournaments.
Die By The Blade features:
⚫︎ Weapon-based fighting game with focus on proper timing and spacing
⚫︎ One-hit mechanics for rounds
⚫︎ Other playable characters and weapons available to suit your playstyle
⚫︎ Local and Online multiplayer options
⚫︎ Customization options to express your personal touch
For more gameplay details, read everything we know about Die By The Blade's gameplay and story.
 Die By The Blade |
|
|---|---|
 Steam |
 Epic |
Die By The Blade Pros & Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
 Reads, Range, and Rhythm Different Weapons Allow Different Styles Actual Practice Mode |
One-Hit Mechanic Clunky Movement and Defense Awkward Control Scheme Not Enough Content |
Die By The Blade Overall - 62/100
Die By The Blade takes the combat of For Honor with the stance changes and movement, but doubles down on it by making every attack kill in one hit, similar to Nidhogg and Hellish Quart. It has some depth with regards to how each action is a commitment tied to your stamina. On paper, the mechanics work for weapon-based fighters, but the execution leaves much to be desired. Certain mechanics don’t feel as rewarding to use and I would rather just go for my efficient options rather than use every available tool in my arsenal.
Die By The Blade Story - 5/10
The game barely has a story, but you could tie things together using the descriptive lore that’s assigned to each character. However, with the absence of a story mode or even an arcade mode to show each character’s motivations, there’s not much of a reason for you to be attached to the other characters other than their appearance.
Die By The Blade Gameplay - 8/10
Everything is a commitment, which should be the case for a battle-to-the-death situation in sword fights. However, the execution of the mechanics may need a little more polish or should be explained further. Right now, the control scheme is awkward because doing the sequences takes a considerable amount of effort to get used to, as opposed to simple button presses in other fighting games. Also, the amount of time it takes to unlock new weapons needs to be toned down since it definitely takes way too long to get a new toy to play with when you’re only limited to local and online battles and not much single player content.
Die By The Blade Visuals - 6/10
Visually speaking, it’s a hit and miss. The backgrounds and backdrops available all look gorgeous and fit the theme of the game which "samuraipunk," but the character designs leave much to be desired. The characters look pretty bland and generic, but the other cosmetics in the game do improve on their overall design.
Die By The Blade Audio - 6/10
The overall audio design is average. I wouldn’t say anything is noteworthy other than the loud sound effects that come with the strikes. If anything, some sound effects may be too loud especially in finishers and that the music is repetitive, but it’s not anything you can change in the settings anyway.
Die By The Blade Value for Money - 6/10
For the number of options that the game currently has, even for $19.99, it’s not a very worthwhile investment at the moment. The gameplay can be frustrating early on and it may stem from certain mechanics that are extremely punishing, but you can’t deny the fun factor that the game has for groups of friends. I would advise waiting for a sale or until more updates arrive for the game to get a better experience right from the get-go.
Die By The Blade Review: A Lackluster Fight to the Death
While I don’t have much experience with games that are similar to Die By The Blade, I am familiar with how fighting games are. It’s clear to me that this game isn’t some gimmicky fighting game as it really is a 3D fighting game with all the different mechanics available to the player. But it’s definitely not perfect. The clunky movement, awkward control scheme, and one-hit mechanics may lead to a frustrating experience for players just trying to play the game. Not to mention that there’s very little content to do in the game other than kill the AI or another player in local or online versus.
To start things off, both the visuals and audio are decent enough to not be the cause of the game’s lackluster review. While I can nitpick the character models, the game offers multiple customization options to cover the bland designs that the characters have. Other than that, the music is repetitive and some sound effects aren’t great, but they’re not really something I’d put focus on in a game like this.
So let’s address the good first. It’s a fighting game, through and through. Making good reads, adjusting to the proper timing, and knowing your effective range are important to ensuring victory. The game even gives you a pretty good practice mode to know these things properly like showing hitboxes, actual range, and more. Along with this, there’s a lot of different weapons that really change up the matchup for certain weapons as you might need to alter your approach with some weapons being quicker on the draw or longer reaching.
Playing against the AI was quite frustrating because, half the time I didn't really understand if they were reading my input or if I was just bad at the game. But, when I was able to fight against someone offline, it felt as if I was trying to get into my opponent’s head when I was able to fake them with feints and strike when their guards were down. The game has the satisfying feeling of killing your opponent with one hit especially if you were intentionally trying to bait and hit them with the use of the game’s mechanics.
But here’s where it turns sour. With the one-hit mechanic being a core mechanic of combat, there are times where I don’t know if I won due to dumb luck. More than that, the combination of the sluggish movement and the clunky defense system makes it harder to fend for yourself especially when there’s an enemy determined to just swing at you. I pulled off some perfect parries, but it never really felt like I was rewarded after doing so, since attacking right after would have me overextend and get myself killed right after.
This happened quite often, so what I opted to do was hang back after a perfect parry and try to complete a sequence instead so that the opponent would be forced to perfect parry or else they’d immediately lose. Other than that, I used the rolling attack, which was very hard to stop as you would have to read them rolling into you rather than outright blocking their attack attempt.
Overall, the game is, without a doubt, a fighting game. Whether it’s a fighting game that you want to put a lot of effort and time into is subjective for anyone who plays the game. There are a lot of things that the game could use to polish things, like the responsiveness of how you transition between things, but only time will tell if it can improve player retention. The worst part of the game is that it lacks content for players to stay interested in playing, rather than just playing it for fun.
Pros of Die By The Blade
| Things Die By The Blade Got Right |
|---|
|
Reads, Range, and Rhythm Different Weapons Allow Different Styles Actual Practice Mode |
Reads, Range, and Rhythm
Realistically speaking, fighting games are all elaborate and more complex rock-paper-scissors matches with some embellishments on the side. With Die By The Blade, everything rests on your timing, reads, and range, as you literally only have one shot per round. The game’s mechanics allow for deep gameplay scenarios where you can make use of feints, parries, sequences, and movement to get around your opponent and ultimately defeat them through slicing them open.
Different Weapons Allow Different Styles
There’s a multitude of weapons available in the game namely the Katana, Chokuto, Nodachi, Wakizashi, and Naginata. All of these weapons have their own distinct movesets and ranges, meaning that each have their own strengths and weaknesses in combat. With this in mind, there’s a lot of skill expression involved with how you use each weapon with the different characters as they all have different parameters as well. It would be easy to say to pick whatever you like but with the weapons being gated by progression, it may take a while for you to do so.
Actual Practice Mode
With the design of the game based on that one hit for you to kill your opponents, it’s imperative that you’re familiar with how you use your weapon properly. The Practice Mode allows the display of hitboxes, range between your opponent, and more to make it easier to identify these things. Not a lot of fighting games want to put hitboxes out there, so I appreciate that the devs actually put this information out there for the player. Though I do wish that the actual frame data for the swings are included just so you can identify your fastest starters and such.
Cons of Die By The Blade
| Things That Die By The Blade Can Improve |
|---|
|
One-Hit Mechanic Clunky Movement and Defense Awkward Control Scheme Not Enough Content |
One-Hit Mechanic
With the game being a one-hit kill for ANY attack made, it’s either going to be a slog with which player swings first or commits to doing their sequences, or a round is over two seconds into it. This may be a point of frustration as it may feel like you lost to sheer luck or something that’s not under your control.
Clunky Movement and Defense
Movement and defense are clunky to say the least, whether it was intentional or not, I personally think that walking around the stage should be a little faster than it is now. With moving being a slow method, you’ll be forced to use the blocking and parrying mechanics in the game to fend for yourself. This is where I thought the game really needed a lot more polish as it felt too slow most of the time. You need both the correct timing and the correct stance to perfect parry attacks. More than that, there are certain attacks that are very hard to defend against like the rolling attack for example, so with perfect parries just damaging their stamina, it may not be as rewarding to do than just outspeeding them with an attack.
Awkward Control Scheme
The game’s control scheme is definitely unique with triggers being used for horizontal and vertical attacks, and then both sticks are used for doing sequences for your swings and the like. There’s also a roll and a dodge button, which are used to cover distance and evade certain swings. When tackling it for the first time, the control scheme definitely took me a while to get used to, and I don’t think I’ll ever get used to doing sequences where you use both movement and the right stick AND the specific button to do a certain string of actions.
Not Enough Content
At the moment, the game only has local and online battles for you to enjoy deadly combat. With the Challenges being gated by progression, you might need to put some time in to play the AI or other people just to earn XP. Other than that, there’s not much else to do in the game, unless you’re willing to put in a lot of time and effort beating up the AI for XP.
Is Die By The Blade Worth It?
Stay Your Blade at the Moment
It’s undeniable that the game has more of its own identity when comparing it to similar games like For Honor, Hellish Quart, Nidhogg, and more. With the current state of the game’s mechanics and its one-hit rounds, it may be frustrating for newer players to get used to how the game is played. By all intents and purposes, it IS a fighting game, albeit a non-traditional one. If you were looking for a bit more content AND a traditional fighting game, this might not be the one for you.
| Digital Storefronts | |
|---|---|
| Steam |
Epic |
| $19.99 | |
Die By The Blade FAQ
When will Die By The Blade release for consoles?
While there are no official announcements for the console release as of writing, the devs have announced a target to release the game on console by October 2024 in the official Discord.
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Die By The Blade Product Information
| |
| Title | DIE BY THE BLADE |
|---|---|
| Release Date | May 16, 2024 |
| Developer | Grindstone, Triple Hill Interactive, Toko Midori Games |
| Publisher | Grindstone |
| Supported Platforms | PC(Steam, EGS), PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S |
| Genre | Action, Fighter, Online |
| Number of Players | Single Player, Local and Online PvP (1v1) |
| Rating | IARC 18+ |
| Official Website | Die by the Blade Official Website |
