Skara - The Blade Remains

Skara - The Blade Remains
N/A
Metacritic
61
Steam
39
xDR
Our rating is calculated based on the reviews and popularity of the game.
Release date
27 October 2014
Developers
Publishers
Steam reviews score
Total
61 (72 votes)

Skara is a Free-to-Play competitive team-based melee combat game placed in a fantasy world which future is influenced by players. Take your weapons and join the arena!

Show detailed description

Skara - The Blade Remains system requirements

Minimum:

  • OS: Windows 7 SP1, Windows 8/8.1 (64-bit operating system required)
  • Processor: Intel Core i5-2500K @ 3.3 GHz or AMD FX-8350 @ 4.0 GHz
  • Memory: 4 GB RAM
  • Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 or AMD Radeon HD 7970 (2 GB VRAM)
  • DirectX: Version 11
  • Network: Broadband Internet connection
  • Storage: 3 GB available space
  • Sound Card: DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card with latest drivers
  • Additional Notes: Windows-compatible keyboard and mouse required, optional controller
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Popularity
Reviews
Write a new review
RockwellPShagNasty
RockwellPShagNasty

This game could be fun for a arena battle with friends ....if co-op it looks like you would be in a arena with friends against others. The only problem im having is no one is hosting a match yet and i hosted one and waited a while and there's nothing to do unless people are joined in a match to fight.

The graphics and character control is really talented artist with alot of potiential. With what's available on this game i don't agree with the price if it was 1/4th of the price and each arena was a $5 add on that might make sense.

But I bought a $20 game and no one to play with me or to battle.

I give this a recommend though because I think these guys are onto something good though. I like the graphics and gameplay. It is early access so i'll keep it a recommend for now and see how it goes.

The Mean Man
The Mean Man

Edit 2020: what happened :'(

I am very excited for this game. Obviously, as it is early access, purchasing the game at this stage isn't for everyone. However, I enjoy seeing the updates as they come and playing them as soon as possible to get a feel of where the game is going. I heard about Skara a few weeks ago and cannot wait to bring all my friends in to play it when it's more stable :) The graphics are beautiful and what they seem to have in mind keeps me excited for updates.

TL;DR,
It's early access, buying it now will mean you're getting it before it's "finished".
If you don't want to go ahead and buy, add it to your wishlist and follow it and check back every so often!

Peanut Butter Jelly Time
Peanut Butter …

After playing this game, my PC shut down and recover only after video card replacement.
Now I need to check wats wrong.

Consider it before installing :)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

EDIT (to reduce comments about bad PC setup):

Video Card: GTX780Ti
Already got the new one.

Mauzi
Mauzi

The game sure is in an early stage it isn't complete.

For the moment you can just fight with some basic moves against other players (or bots) in an arena.

It has some great animations for an early access game and the textures are not ugly at all.

The big thing here are the devs they are really helping this game to evolve, they won't let this game fall like so many did with their own creations.

Don't buy it expecting something complete but buy it to support the devs who are doing some great job there.

pacxel
pacxel

Needs A Single player mode or bot match. and more to do!!! Wait a minute WTF host a match is bot match. LOL Needs work! But could be a good game NEEDS single player i think

well Im giving this a thumbs up! Only because this could be a good some day. Lots of wolk

Shoe
Shoe

At first i experiences a bit of lag but then it was updated, i saw it was in progress, and it was updated and it was fine, it is fun once you get into it and it being in early access means they give you special armour, which looks amazing, overall i would rate this gate 9/10 :)

Lucian
Lucian

Alors. En fait je n'ai pas pu jouer à ce jeu. Pas de serveur. Et là le goût de l'incompréhension envahit mon palet. Tristesse, rage, abandon. J'aurais voulu essayer. Malheureusement le jeu ne m'a pas laissé cette opportunité. J'espère qu'un jour, il sera fini et je pourrais alors me réjouir de la maigre dépense que j'ai effectué.

En attendant, je vais me morfondre au fond d'une pièce noire et lugubre en attendant d'autres soldes steam pour vivre la même expérience.

Amicalement,

MGS-NOSCOPE-XXX

Old R4sputin
Old R4sputin

Even if I only have played for a little, the game is fun as can be. Messing with player customizations was fun and exploring the maps was fun! I would totally recommend the game because the PVP aspect is just too much fun

Manest
Manest

It won't even start... Three years of development and it can't even start... Hahaha this is pathetic. Drop your little shit project devs, it will never be good!

BloodyMystik™
BloodyMystik™

Though it was an rpg if you lead it into an RPG/MMO or RPG/RTS (Armies Wars Style Arma 3 Zeus Style) lool it would be the best game ever made with that kind of combat system woow but only arena fight.... boring

Cabbit
Cabbit

Bad. Just bad. Non-stop crashing.

To those who rated GOOD for this game, how come your playtime are so low????? Mind enlightening me?????

ahhh, all I can do now is to blame my own stupidity. FOR NOT CHECKING THE PLAYTIME OF THOSE WHO RATED GOOD.

Sapaieo
Sapaieo

At the moment I wouldnt recommend this game,
why?
A) It has a ton of game crashing scenarios (I know its early access), but when you are just pressing a few buttons to often and the game crashes,... you get the hang of it
B) No players at all,... I was in a Free for all game queue for 30 Minutes... nobody joined

H4ckNSl4sh3r
H4ckNSl4sh3r

Love it, just my kind of game to sit down and get all the aggression from the day out. High quality experience, especially fun to watch people fall into the lava. The bots are entertaining but fighting real people really makes this game everything you could hope for. 10/10

Savant
Savant

Right now i think this game needs a lot of work, but when it is finished it looks like its gonna be a really good game.

Pinki Nogami
Pinki Nogami

don't believe user-defined tags, Adventure, RPG, this game bad optimized pvp arena with lazy control.

The Male/Man
The Male/Man

Starting to wish I was able to get a refund on this, but I was here for the early access.

I reckon this game fails as far as offering anything of value to the gaming community, because the point of an invention is usually...

It's meant to solve a dilemma/offer something new..

It's not really meant for anyone else...

Or, it's a moneygrab.

This game offers combat akin to, but lesser than the combat in Dark Souls.

And unlike Dark Souls, the servers are usually empty.

I don't foresee this game being much more than a niche title, unfortunately.

WeAreSystematix
WeAreSystematix

Seems like it has some promise, hard to tell though with so few people to play against and only 4 classes there is not enough variation yet. Still in alpha so let's see where it goes from here. F2P so at least it doesn't cost to watch it develop :) I have to recommend this game to others because if no one plays it then it will never get any better.

alel
alel

-tooo buggyyy...
-fatal errors almost on every game mode
-sometime hangup at character screen
-sometime not listening to key/button press
-loading too long
-no people anyway, don't bother...

TheHumanSquid
TheHumanSquid

Never got to play it. Everytime I tried, a "Fatal error occured". The best part was, it wouldn't even close when this happened, so I had to go into task manager and shut it down from there everytime. I also noticed that the customization, while being very limited, is also so glitchy I couldn't even click everything there either. All and all, the game could be fun for all I know, but the fact that EVERYTHING I tried to interact with didn't work, I'd say it sucks

njdevil2k2
njdevil2k2

**1/7/18 updated review**
im able to load now but there is nobody.... not even bots... has massive potential but just dead...

i cant recommend a game i cant load...or play

**update**Feb.18,2017*
since the update i have been able to load the game and play the tutorial... feels like a cheaper version of for honor...but this is my formulated opinion.. it however does have potential to be MUCH better, the only reason i rate is not recommended..i do come across a fatal error, then game freezes to a point i have to open Task Manager to shut it down ... if the stability is fixed ...maybe...til then try it if you may... graphically.. it Def could be better... imo and this is on max settings... im only referring to character models.. not the environments... they are beautif

Owlflame
Owlflame

Honestly, this doesn't really feel good.

Battles just feel like flailing attacks around until something happen and all the specials feel really cool and strategic until you learn that once you're locked on they'll pretty much always hit regardless. That chain pull axe move, that leap move and a few others just kinda happen. Then you get the damage and it's mostly up to your own incompetence whether or not you can kill your opponent right then and there.

I did some single duels and learned that this game feels super not great in a 1 v 1 scenario. Again, if your character can chain attacks together you should have the round free. Abilities are neat but none seeming to matter at all for doing anything else other than damage or getting you the hit.

I think the worst part was when I waited for a minute and a half to get a 3 v 3 game going. Then it started and I'm so excited. Then I notice that everyone except me is a bot and everyone dies in the trap in the middle of the stage anyway because the bots are dumb... I'm not immedietly taken with the game.

No offense if the developers are reading this, but go play for honor. You guys really need some of that game feel to make this work.

Caesar
Caesar

Decent game(play), aswell as nice looking graphics the only downside as of now is the lack of online players.
Though generally I can recommend this game.
Spread the word, suggest this game to your friends & lets make this game popular !

JM™
JM™

Skara - The Blade Remains is the newest audition in the competetive play gaming genre introducing unique styled combat and match system, with a lot of story behind every single character the game offers players to try. Although opinions for the game are mixed, the game is still in early phase of development, and for the early stages it is in, the developers have done a lot.
The combat style of the game is very unique and distinctive. Each character has 3 special abilities, and two default abilities - strong and normal strike. Strategical thinking and outsmarting the enemy is sometimes essential, because not only your survival and combat skills matter. The game has rich environment interaction, and it allows you trick players into traps leading you to victory. If your enemies are not careful enough, you wouldn't need to engage in combat, and just use the environment to your advantage.
Speaking of combat, the game allows players to free run, or lock on targets. Locking on targets is a must for best precision. Sometimes locking on targets unlocks passive abilities - like fast dashing, or running jump spear strike. Some characters have passive abilities, like shield defense.
Dive into this clash combat adventure in 1v1, 3v3 or 5v5 modes, each one on a different map, with different environmental rules. Discover the current and new incoming characters, and claim to become the best warrior of your faction in Skara - The Blade Remains.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvbYXnwwgwM&list=PLcPrSuz-BoJ4UGGst6U9i…

Nick
Nick

This game is rough. Very rough. I only knew it existed because I was sent an email by the developer to play it.
The controls are clunky, and it doesn't feel that hits even register against opponents. The art style is bland, as it clearly uses default UE4 assets, so little to no work has been put in on that front. And to say that this is ‘Souls-like’. Laughable.

In terms of actual gameplay, there’s hardly anything to do. No one seems to be actually be online, so I as soon as loaded the game up I joined a match… Well, I waited five minutes and got a match against ALL bots. No players. I then proceeded to last thirty seconds before my character got stuck in mid-air during a dodge animation, and then was immediately killed by a bot.

Don’t play it, don’t invest money into its microtransactions (oh yes, they’re here!) and if I were the developer, I would pull this game from steam and work on it until it was actually IN a playable state, with content and fewer bugs.

Tempura Knight
Tempura Knight

Introduction

I believe this isn't my first review, although it certainly feels like it. Please forgive me if the following review is somewhat disjointed or disorganized in its structure. I would also like to tell you to take both my review and other reviews of this (and any game) with a pinch of salt. What I've written here are, of course, my own opinions. If this game interests you at all after reading this review, you should try it and form your own opinion on it!

Skara - The Blade Remains is a multiplayer online team-based battle arena (or perhaps I should call it a fighting game?) with controls and gameplay similar to that of Lords of the Fallen or Dark Souls. You could call it a MOBA with the exceptions of the usual towers and minions that are commonly associated with those kind of games - this is all about the fighting. It is being developed by an independant group (in Spain if I'm not mistaken). It is currently in open alpha testing at the time of this review.

So what makes this game good?

To be perfectly honest, I went into this game with a clean mind. I had read many of the negative (and positive) reviews and so I decided it would be better to form my own opinion. I was quite surprised by the game, though.

Skara has a lot of good elements going for it. While it is not that uncommon to find a third-person MOBA today, I think Skara is one of the only ones that actually has all of its emphasis on the fighting. If you've played a Souls game or something like Dragon's Dogma, you'll get the controls down pretty quickly. Other than your usual WASD-movement controls, your player character has a normal attack and a special attack which they can freely mix into combo attacks. Your character also has a defensive move (for instance, one character can block and another one can counter an attack with the right timing) and the ability to dodge (rolling, stepping or dashing depending on character) which gives you some frames of invincibility. It gives you all the tools necessary for enjoyable (if not a little clunky) intensive fights.

Apart from your basic moves, each of the character types have access to three "Signs", or abilities, unique to them. These can be all from throwing your shield while setting it on fire like a pyromaniac Captain America, or placing a trap that encases your enemy (or even yourself or your allies!) in ice so they can't move. These Signs add a lot of versatility to your character and really opens up for interesting tactics, especially during group fights.

Skara has two game modes currently, with a third one planned for release soon: A 1v1 duel mode and a 3v3 last man standing mode. The third game mode coming out is a 5v5 domination mode. I actually found it very interesting for a game like this to include a duel mode to begin with, and as such it was the first mode I ever played.

The biggest thing that Skara has going for it is how player-driven its development is. Players can post their suggestions and ideas for lore and even character designs and game features, and it is very important that they do so as well. A major part of how the game is played today is because of the feedback the game has received since the beginning of its development. At the time of writing this review, the developers are quickly and happily responding to queries and suggestions on the Steam discussion forums all the time, which is quite impressive.

Another large part of Skara is its lore, which does take the player-driven development into account. The previous highest-ranking players were placed as part of the game's lore, for instance. There's a lot to read and a lot to add to the lore, and I don't want to spoil it for you in case you decide to try the game out for yourself, so I think that's all I'll write about it.

The game currently has a shop where you can pay real currency to buy cosmetics (and only cosmetics, no pay to win here) for the different characters. The reason I bring this up in this section is because, at least in my opinion, the majority of the cosmetics look really good! I've already spent some money on pimping out my two favorite characters! The graphics overall look very nice and really portrays the overall kind of grim atmosphere.

And what makes this game bad?

It really depends on your own tastes. As I mentioned, at the time of this writing the game is in open alpha, so there is a lack of content. The duel mode has one map, a frozen little island in the middle of the sea, and the last mand standing mode also only has one map, the lava coliseum. Currently, there are only 4 (with a 5th in the "Coming Soon-making) character types to play with, and even while they are very different from each other, there are indeed only 4.

There are bugs, of course. When me and a friend tried to add each other to our friends list or party the first time, it just didn't work - we had to restart the game first. Ever since it has worked though, and when I posted about it on the forums I got a quick reply from one of the developers too. The game is also not very optimized, which is a common thing for an early build, but still might put you off a little if you aren't expecting it. It doesn't slow down dramatically or anything like that, but it can have the occasional stuttering.

The matchmaking also seems a bit weird. Even though me and my friend queued up for dueling at the same time, it took the game ~40 seconds of searching for a match before we got to play. It's not a long time, but it is quite strange that it works like that. If you queue up and the game can't find another player, it will pit you against bots until a player takes its/their place.

On a final note, I do wish there were more diverse sound effects in the game. The ones that are in are not bad or stock by any means, but how the sound of a spear blade penetrating your flesh is the same sound as a massive pick made out of bone or a curved sword in eastern style is beyond me! It's not gamebreaking though and I imagine this is something that will change as the game develops further.

Conclusion

Skara - The Blade Remains is a fun game. Fighting other players, especially in last man standing, is a blast and every fight feels different. It is not a perfect game as it lacks content (it is in alpha, after all) but the content it currently has is quite enjoyable. It has been said many times before, but this game has a lot of good potential (and so far it is not being wasted one bit). The only thing Skara really suffers from is a lack of players, and I can't stress that enough - if the game had more active players, it would likely be the one of the games I've invested the most hours in ever on my steam account, haha.

Gameplay - 7/10
Audio - 7/10
Graphics - 8/10
Story (Lore) - 6/10

I definitely recommend giving this game a try, especially with friends. Thank you for reading!

Kodyd194
Kodyd194

Skara - The Blade Remains seems like it has potential to be a decent fighting game. Right now it is really, really rough. I don't know where it may go in the future but I recommend if you are interested you try it out at least.

Star ★ Stranger
Star ★ Stranger

This game is a blast to play.

Pros:
-Great combat
-Characters for most playstyles
-Nice Graphics

Cons:
-Low player count
-A few characters need some buffs/debuffs

I think you should play this.

Neophage
Neophage

I only played this game for a bit, but I got hooked instantly.

Although obviously beeing a very early version and thus not including a lot of content yet (four characters and two maps/gamemodes), what is there is really solid.

The combat can be a little chaotic, but it never feels like you loose the control over what is happening.

The controls (I am using a gamepad) feel similar to 3rd person action RPGs à la Dark Souls or the Witcher and are quite intuitive.

In terms of graphics it has a clean look and runs on a midrange pc on highest settings without noticable framedrops.

Maybe the biggest plus for me is the matchmaking. Even though this is an online early access game on steam - which there are probably thousands of - it usually take only a couple of seconds to rarely more than two minutes to get into a new match.

All in all an already fun experience with a ton of potential.

AltarMichael
AltarMichael

Ignore the current release date on this game. It's been in development for several years now, and it's still very rough.

Sir Seal The Slippery
Sir Seal The S…

A game that is far from beeing finished,yet it still is already very entertaining and has a lot of potential.

Positive:

-The combat system is similiar to dark souls,you can target a opponent,do dodge rolls/sidesteps,use fast or heavy attacks...
There are also different skills to use,depending on the race that you want to play as.
-No pay to win,just purely cosmetical items.
-If you do well on the ranking list,you can be included in the games ever evolving story.
-The developers are trying their best to listen to the players and host,,play with the devs''events or talk with you on discord.
-Nice community.

Negative:

-Very small playerbase at the moment.
-Bugs are not exactly rare.
-Badly optimized.
-Not many game modes(only 1vs1 and a 3vs3 last team standing).

The game is still in a very early state,so bugs and a small playerbase isnt uncommon.
The rest will hopefully get fixed/added too.
At least the devs are very active and searching the contact with the community,so i have no reason to doubt them for now.
If youre unsure about the game,i sugest that you take a look at the discord channel and ask away.

⌛ قسم الجهاد ⌛
⌛ قسم الجهاد ⌛

The thing that really bothers me is I was a early supporter that paid a big price for a special edition of the game promising items, why is it that essientially the game comes out for free and no one that supported the early version got anything as told?