Stray Blade played: Exciting Souls-like fare from Germany!

If you edit the topic of Souls-like as a game magazine, it can sometimes seem as if you would describe each of the now countless games of this subgenre with similar words. The settings are mostly something like “gloomy”, “macabre” or “horror”, the stories “cryptic” or “fragmented” and the fights are of course “hard as nails”. So it’s all the more refreshing when a game comes around the corner that can be assigned to the genre but breaks with many of these traditional characteristics. Enter Point Blank Games: With Stray Blade, the team from Berlin is currently developing an action RPG that we were immediately drawn to with its colorful visuals, its talkative characters and its crisp but accessible gameplay. We were able to preview Stray Blade at Gamescom and reveal why you should keep an eye on the title!

In Stray Blade, you are either a male or female adventurer in the open valley of Acrea to find three powerful ores and restore order.

You will be accompanied by a talkative wolf creature named Boji, who will tell you about your mission with his pithy Scottish accent: You will be held captive by a magic stone in the valley, which will also allow Boji to find you after death – at the last activated checkpoint , of course – revive. The only way out: kill the gatekeeper, whose arena you have to fight your way through first.

As soon as you step into the first large zone of Acrea, you’ll notice how colorful and bright the game’s visuals are. The colorful style with a slight comic touch sets Stray Blade apart from many of its genre peers and thanks to its fine armor, enemy and weapon designs, the indie game already looks classy and polished at this early stage.

Stray Blade played at Gamescom: colorful action RPG from Berlin could be the ideal gateway drug (5)

Source: Point Blank Games / 505 Games



The animations are also impressive: both enemy and own attacks have power and are clearly legible. And that’s important, because although the developers explicitly describe Stray Blade as a classic action RPG, pretty much all the elements of a Souls-like are on board, which is particularly evident when fighting.

It’s all a matter of perseverance

In the starting area you fight with wolf-like opponents, bugs, giant squirrels and two-legged warriors with different weapons. Each of your actions consumes stamina, and if you chain too many of them together, your character will go into a brief forced pause, allowing enemies to critically hit you.

Because at least human-like opponents also have a stamina bar, you can also turn the tables: With many attacks in a row or successful parries, you break the opponent’s attitude and then you can use a cool animated finisher on your part.

Stray Blade alluded to at Gamescom: colorful action RPG from Berlin could become the ideal gateway drug (6)

Source: Point Blank Games / 505 Games



We mainly played with a classic two-handed sword, but also tried out a fast pair of daggers, which deal little direct damage but more endurance damage.

You can get additional weapons by assembling them with found blueprints and a handful of materials at a forge, which is accompanied by a funny little animation. Each weapon also comes with its own special attack, and you can also use Boji in battle: The fur nose can throw a bomb at opponents, which stuns monsters briefly and drains a lot of endurance from two-legged friends.