Bladesong is more than a blacksmith sim

I love a good immersive sim, and when I first played the demo for Bladesong last year, that’s what I thought it would be — a blacksmithing sim where you make cool swords in a fantasy setting.

But Bladesong is so much more than that. Don’t get me wrong: making swords is cool as hell. What elevates Bladesong, though, is its story and that setting because it’s less a sword-making sim and more a … well-written, grimdark D&D campaign where you don’t play as a hero, but instead play as a workaday laborer caught up in the grand fantasy machinations. Let me explain.

During the day, you manage your stocks of steel, wood, and leather while you take on commissions for blades from fellow refugees or people who’ve heard about your services around town. Those blades have requirements for things like length, balance, sharpness, and hilt components. You shape the steel while balancing all of those requirements (and add some style of your own while you’re at it).

At night, though, before curfew, you explore the world around Eren Keep, the last safe city in a dying world. You’ll meet people and vendors, and uncover mysteries as you find new locations to visit around the keep. At first, you’re scraping by to survive in a refugee camp outside the walls. Later, you’ll take up residence inside the keep itself, though it’s not much safer and the mysteries you uncover are far more deadly.

There’s a comic from more than a decade ago that reimagines the iconic “It’s dangerous to go alone!” scene from The Legend of Zelda. In the comic, the old man giving Link his sword is a little more clear about what the gift means.

In Bladesong, you’re not just watching the events of the city. By taking on commissions — something you have to do to earn money for rent, supplies, and food — you might arm an assassin or provide weapons to an uprising. Maybe you’re just making cool swords, but those swords get used. Sometimes to survive. Sometimes to kill. Sometimes to change the world.

Bladesong does seem to have branching choices — to an extent — in its narrative. Technically, you can just skip over making swords for anyone dodgy and keep your head down. Some of the events will happen with or without your involvement, though. And, besides, Eren Keep is the kind of place where just asking the wrong questions can get you disappeared, so you’re probably going to get caught up in the intrigue at some point.

So, yes, Bladesong is a blacksmithing sim where you hammer steel into swords. But it’s also one of the best-written and most fully realized examples of worldbuilding I’ve seen in recent years. In a text-based game about swinging a hammer, I didn’t expect to get choked up by the events unfolding around me, but the world of Bladesong is so rich and heartfelt that I couldn’t help it. 

Bladesong came out in early access at the end of last week and costs $18. Not everything you see on the Steam page is available in the current game, but what’s there is more than a solid start. And there’s plenty more content to come. Right now, there’s probably 10 or so hours to play — and, let me tell you, I was upset when I hit the end of published content. I was not ready to leave the world of Eren Keep and I cannot wait to play what comes next.