Solo Developer's Kickstarter Shows Strong Demand for Open-World RPGs Evoking Early 2000s Classics Like Gothic

A solo developer named Csaba "ForestWare" Székely discovered the hard way that there's a huge interest in the kind of game he's creating: a complex, system-focused open-world RPG influenced by early 2000s titles such as Gothic, Kenshi, Arx Fatalis, Blade of Darkness, Fable, and especially for me, the cherished manga and anime series Berserk.

Sword Hero, which is a title I absolutely adore, is an ode to that very unique period in the early '00s when open-ended gameplay was still new and developers were continuously expanding the boundaries of interactivity. I still recall being amazed because Shenmue actually allowed youuse the snack machines, sacred cow

Sword Hero is specifically a medieval fantasy RPG that emphasizes player freedom, consequences, spontaneous gameplay, and realism—though not too much realism when fire-breathing dragons are flying overhead. It features a day/night cycle, changing weather, a system for crime and punishment, NPCs with intricate behaviors who will steal from corpses and mourn deceased friends, bodies that decay into the ground rather than vanish, and attributes that visibly alter your character's appearance (such as increased strength leading to larger muscles or lasting scars from battles).

Combat is highly complex, focusing on directional attacks akin to Kingdom Come: Deliverance, where striking and defending depend on your opponent's position, except here. "Each body part tracks its own health, armor, and debuffs individually." For instance, hitting someone in the head causes more damage than a blow to the leg, but with enough strength or persistence, the leg will eventually fail regardless, causing your opponent to fall. Full limb removal is also possible, which I assume is where the Berserk influence comes into play.

You'll have an extensive selection of ways to do so, as well. Sword Hero allows you to fill your collection with, you guessed it, swords, but also hammers, flails, maces, axes, daggers, bows, throwing weapons, bombs, poisons, traps, spells, necromancy, summons, and... "limb mutations."

I tried playing Free combat demo of Sword HeroOn Steam, I entered with the mistaken confidence of someone who had 150 hours in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 and got repeatedly defeated, until I finally slowed down and started understanding the mechanics. It's a very tough, sometimes annoying experience, but like Kingdom Come, once you get the hang of it, it's greatly rewarding to beat the odds.

Like any high-octane, action-filled RPG that's worth its reputation, Sword Hero also features some relaxing aspects, including a housing system inspired by Fable, allowing you to purchase and lease rooms, houses, and bigger properties, and furnish and decorate them however you like.

Importantly, fortunately, there's a cooking mini-game that maintains the same level of realism found throughout the game. The recipes incorporate ingredients that are logical in real life, such as combining flour and water to create dough, and you can cook on any heat source, even if it's a burning bush. Putting that dough on a smoldering heap of leaves will result in it slowly rising into a loaf of bread, while placing it in a pot of boiling water turns it into pasta. You get the picture.

The more I learn about Sword Hero, the more it's turning into one of my most eagerly awaited RPGs. As a child, I was always captivated by games that offer deep immersion and allow you to do anything, and I suppose I'm still drawn to developers who come up with fresh ways to make you exclaim, "you can really do that?!" or be amazed by the intelligence of non-player characters. The game's demo shows that ForestWare has the expertise to create an incredibly ambitious combat system, especially for a solo developer, so I'm quite hopeful they'll manage to fulfill at least most of what Sword Hero promises.

It seems I'm not the only one who believes in Sword Hero, as the game's Kickstarter campaign has successfully raised an impressive $255,558, far exceeding its initial $35,000 target. In a Kickstarterupdate, ForestWare stated that the game was funded within two hours, and in a laterupdate, that "I can't type as quickly as you're funding." Not a bad issue to face, I'd say.

Sword Hero is scheduled to come out in December 2027.

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