Price: £7.49
Developer: Rebel Act Studio/SNEG
Publisher: SNEG
Platform: PC
Originally release in 2001, Severance: Blade of Darkness was an innovative hack ‘n’ slash RPG notable for its advanced dynamic lighting engine and brutal, challenging combat. It’s always been one of my favourite games, but after a poor commercial reception upon launch, the game has spent most of the last two decades languishing on murky abandonware sites.
Fortunately, the game has recently been given a second lease of life thanks to publisher SNEG, which has acquired the rights to the game and re-released it on Steam with a slightly shorter title and some much-needed quality of life features. Since I was too young to review it when it first launched, and will likely never get the chance to write about it again, I thought I’d take this opportunity to say “Hey you! Play Blade of Darkness, you lemon.”
Blade of Darkness’ ambition is clear from the moment you pick which character to play as. There are four to choose from, Sargon the Knight, Naglfar the Dwarf, Zoe the Amazon and Turkaram the Barbarian. Not only does each character have their own moveset and weapon proficiency (Sargon is a sword-and-shield fellow while Zoe prefers spears and polearms) they also have their own starting locations. Sargon, for example, begins the game with a daring escape from a castle of evil knights, while Turkaram searches the cursed burial grounds of his homeland for a sacred stone circle.
Each character has their own benefits and drawbacks. Well, except for Naglfar, who’s generally a bit rubbish. In any case Sargon’s proficiency with shields make him a good starting character, as does Zoe’s agility, letting her avoid enemy attacks with ease. For me though, Blade of Darkness has always been about Turkaram. Not simply because his grizzled face occupies both the game’s cover and its loading screen, but also because Blade of Darkness’ primary inspiration is Conan the Barbarian.
Blade of Darkness’ world heavily channels the brutal, fast-paced and often contextless fantasy stories of Robert E. Howard. The fortresses, temples, mines and tombs that comprise the game’s 14 levels (not including the four introductory levels) are introduced with only a few lines of dialogue that summarise that location’s history. The rest is left to the level design and your imagination. The game’s levels paint a picture of a fantasy world slowly decaying into oblivion, where noble knights fall to