Preview | The Lone Blade

LifeisXbox’s The Lone Blade preview | The Lone Blade is a 3D platformer where you play as a sword. The game takes place in the ruins of a world that once was yours. In order to redeem yourself, you will have to ascend throughout this fallen world. The Lone Blade is currently being developed by French developers Hugo Kieffer and Baptiste Lonqueu. We tried out the free demo that is currently available and we’d love to share our thoughts with you!

A good amount of potential

The idea behind this game is a very new take on the 3D platforming genre since you play as a blade. I was immediately drawn to this concept and I do believe The Lone Blade has the potential to grab the attention of players. The demo looks pretty neat and lets you play as the sword for a short while. You start off with a little tutorial in black and white before setting off on your tiny adventure through a desert-like environment. The graphics are really enjoyable to look at, even though I didn’t focus on them as much as I wanted to during my first run (you’ll soon find out why). The soft music and the sound of crickets in the back really provided a relaxing feeling, which was very much needed given the difficult nature of the game.

Very difficult

From the moment you start the tutorial, it will become clear to you that The Lone Blade is going to be a difficult game. Navigating the controls is quite challenging, and if I’m being totally honest: I got quite a bit frustrated at first. Once you get the hang of how to move around as a sword, the whole game becomes so much more interesting, but it all remains a challenge, let me tell you. The difficulty was also the reason I focused less on the graphics since I was so busy trying to get my sword to where I wanted it to go.

Needs more polishing

With the movement being rather tough, it sometimes felt a little too easy to lose control over my ‘character’. At times, it felt like it just swung the other way and I had no idea how the hell I did that, so this definitely needs some more polishing. It also happened once or twice that my blade got stuck behind something and it was, again, rather difficult to navigate my movement from there on since I couldn’t see that much. The tutorial also uses text written on the screen, floating in the sky, but objects sometimes made it hard for me to read that text. I don’t think a tutorial should be that challenging, so maybe ease that up a little.

I also encountered some bugs. When my sword landed on a surface, it didn’t actually land on a surface. Even though it seemed like it, when I rotated the camera, my blade was floating in the air looking like it was actually attached to a rock when in reality it wasn’t.

To be continued

Playing with this ninja-like sword is a lot of fun, but it’s also very challenging. I’m very curious to see further development of The Lone Blade. I do strongly believe this is a project with a lot of potential. If you want to try out the short demo yourself, all you need is a computer and a controller (keyboard play is not yet supported)! You can find all information and download the free demo right here. If you have any feedback for the devs yourself, you can let them know by filling out the form on the page.