Why Ethereal's Medieval Combat Deserves Your Attention

20.07.2011
"It's like Counterstrike, but with swords." With these words, I immediately grew more interested in Ethereal, a new indie 3rd person medieval combat game from grad students at Carnegie Mellon.

Ethereal is one of several titles being developed as part of IGN's Indie Open House. The six month program offers free office space, internet connectivity and support from GameSpy's Technology staff to independent developers.

For players who are familiar with CounterStrike, the comparisons are obvious-- despite the change in setting and focus. Instead of guns and ammo, in Ethereal you're purchasing armor and swords. The build I saw featured about ten people fighting on two teams but the devs are working on larger scale battles with more robust settings. The game makes heavy use of real time physics, so the combat feels kinetic and powerful-- you won't simply see hacks and slashes doing damage-- you'll be bludgeoning your opponents too.

The developers clearly have a great deal of respect for realism and their source material, as they conducted "research" by taking part in a Society for Creative Anachronism battle. There they claimed to gain a greater appreciation for the tactics and tools that real medieval warriors used-- rather than just the romanticized combat we see in conventional games.

The beta is currently available on and offers anonymous play, round based combat. You'll be crushing, slicing, and stabbing your opponents in no time, but it will be by no means easy. Like Counterstrike, expect to see a steep learning curve with this one. Knowing what shields to buy (a larger one slows you down while a two-handed weapon leaves you without a shield), what armor to purchase (leather, chain, scale, and plate all have advantages), and when/where to strike will keep new players occupied as they try to learn the basics. Weapons and armor can break too, so you'll definitely need to keep killing in order to keep earning money for replacements.

In my experiences, the better armor does make a huge difference-- I was able to withstand several club blows with plate armor despite my inexperience. That said, how you wield your weapon is paramount. My first enemy was using a huge kite shield and so I had to keep attacking him on his vulnerable side while using a heavy claymore. This left me vulnerable, so I had to alternate between blocking and striking at his flank. I had a friend of mine distract him for a minute as I unleashed the killing blow. The round only took a couple of minutes, but I was surprised by how tough it was and how much skill and tactics factored in.