Torn Banner Studios’ Mirage: Arcane Warfare’s open beta is now live on Steam. From the studio behind Chivalry: Medieval Warfare, the closed beta for Mirage has been on-going for a month for pre-order customers. The open beta will be live until May 14th, 10 AM PT/1 PM ET/6 PM BST/7 PM CEST.

Along with nine maps that contain Team Deathmatch and other objective modes, the beta will also have Arena mode. This allows for two teams of three players to compete against each other on two close-quarters maps. The game’s customization system is also available to try out.

Mirage: Arcane Warfare will release on May 23rd for Steam with six different classes to play with. The game combines magic and melee combat to offer a new competitive experience. You can pre-purchase it on Steam here or take part in the open beta here.

What are your thoughts on the beta if you’ve already been playing it? Let us know in the comments below.

Torn Banner Studios’ Chivalry: Medieval Warfare is finally available for PS4 and Xbox One, courtesy of Activsiion, after having released on PC way too many moons ago. A new launch trailer has been released and shows console gamers what they can expect to accomplish in the name of the king (s).

Chivalry: Medieval Warfare is essentially a multiplayer experience in which up to 24 players do battle in more than 25 different battlefields. Instead of guns you’ll be relying on swords, maces and other medieval weaponry to topple your foes, which means getting up close and personal more often than not. The objectives themselves are far from easy as well since you’ll be effectively laying siege to castles and raiding villages. To make things even more fun, a new Horde mode has also been added with the console versions’ release.

What are your thoughts on Chivalry: Medieval Warfare if you’ve already played it? Let us know your in the comments below and stay tuned for more details.

Chivalry: Medieval Warfare is coming to the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One. The good news is that the highly intensive action game will be 1080p on both, the Xbox One and the PlayStation 4, which should give Xbox fans some relief in the ongoing graphical console wars. But this parity comes at a great costs, because the Xbox One version sacrifices its framerate to half, running at just 30FPS to the 60FPS that the PS4 version runs on.

For an action game, this can be unacceptable.

Speaking to WCCFTech, Torn Banner Studios’ President Steve Piggott confirmed the graphical differences; he also confirmed that the game will not be using any platform specific features, such as the touchpad on the DualShock 4, or Kinect on the Xbox One. He did confirm that the game would feature double the player counts over the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions, so regardless of the framerate, I suppose everyone should see some improvement in the game over last gen versions.

Still, though- why not just take the hit on the resolution and maintain the framerate?

The PC exclusive action game Chivalry: Medieval Warfare is going to be making the jump to the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One courtesy of Activision. The PS4 and Xbox One release is slated for next month some time, and it features 24-person online multiplayer, over 25 maps, dedicated server support (see? It happened for a PS4 game after all, although maybe not for the kind of game that you expected), and a new horde mode for teams of up to six.

Chivalry: Medieval Warfare will be a digital only release on consoles; it will launch for $20 on December 1. Also launching that day for $29.99 MSRP on both platforms is Chivalry: Medieval Warfare Ultimate Edition, which includes the full game, plus the Barbarian Character Pack, Marauding Arbiter Pack, Inquisitive Dreadnaught Bundle and Barbarian Weapon Pack. Pre-orders for both versions are expected to open on Nov. 25 for Xbox One only.

Stay tuned to GamingBolt for more coverage and information.

Not too sure how I feel about this one really. I loved Chivalry Medieval Warfare, I put a lot of time into it on PC and made a few good gaming pals through it. But as the updates and patches rolled in,  the game got a little bit more broken. So when Activision announced that their bringing Chivalry Medieval Warfare to Xbox 360 and PS3, my scepticism radar went nuts.

So what do we know? Activision is working with developers Torn Banner Studios alongside Mercenary Technology to port the first person (sort of) skill based game of medieval combat game to the Xbox 360 and PS3. The console build of the team based battle theatre has been refined for the home systems and features 12 player (free for all or team v team generally) and will be available via digital download and not at retail.

Haven’t played Chivalry Medieval Warfare and want to know what to expect? Death. Expect death and gurgling as you swallow your own blood as you grasp for breath. The game (in my experience before it got all busted) perfectly captures the feeling and sheer brutality of Medieval ware. Be it by mace or flail, long sword or pike…you will die. And you’ll love it.

More’s the pity, then. Chivalry is awesome.

It’s deceptive, of course. The game, with its complete lack of a single player mode (sans the tutorial; quite a bit like War of the Roses in that regard, actually). with its extremely short list of classes (a grand total of four), and five multiplayer modes (which, if you were to judge only by their names, are pretty run of the mill and ordinary), almost begs you to dismiss it. Should you actually start playing it, however, you’re in for a treat. On the surface, it might look superficial, lazy even. Under it all, it’s deep, it’s varied, and it’s immensely satisfying.

For starters, let’s just take the classes; these are four highly differentiated classes, each with its own distinct style of gameplay, each well balanced, and each suited to a specific style of playing. Vanguards are like massive tanks, capable of taking a lot of damage, but sacrificing a lot of their attack power and agility in the process; Vanguards are deadly and lethal up close, but can’t don the best armor in the game, and lack range; Men-at-arms are speedy, and are best suited to landing a quick succession of blows while dodging enemy attacks; archers are the only ranged class in the game.

Then there’s the game modes themselves. Aside from the single player tutorial, which is used to acclimatize new players to the game’s rather overwhelming mechanics, there are also five multiplayer game modes. These are Team Deathmatch, King of the Hill, Last Team Standing, Team Objective, and Free-For-All. All of these are exactly what they sound like, with Last Team Standing standing out as the most chaotic, and Team Objective as the most varied, as you are assigned new objectives (anything from defending your keep to assassinating targets), and yet, they remain immensely fun to play.

A lot of that probably comes down to the combat. There’s different weapons available to different classes, and then higher leveled, better versions that can be unlocked by hitting a certain kill quota; in addition, you can have secondary weapons, armor, and a special item which you can take with you into battle. You can change classes mid game if you don’t like the way you’re playing, and that ensures that you never quite lose interest.

Moreover, unlike its genresake War of the Roses, which took a novel approach to combat by assigning unprecedented depth (and as a corollary, unprecedented complexity) to its swordfighting controls, Chivalry keeps it simple: you attack with the left mouse button, you block with the right. And it’s true, unlike War of the Roses, combat in Chivalry never quite reaches the same exhilarating and personally satisfying heights that it does in the former game; at the same time, Chivalry also skips past the hours of frustration inevitably encountered while one is getting used to War of the Roses, and remains much more viscerally satisfying.

A lot of which probably has to do with how almost comically violent the game can get. Limbs go flying off, blood showers out from stumps in gleeful fountains, and the environment itself plays into battle, with ravines, cliffs, spike pits, and other environmental hazards that you can use to perform some great looking kills.

None of this is in the least bit affected by the average at best production qualities of the game- the graphics are mediocre, with clunky animations, and the textures leaving a lot to be desired (although, to be fair, I can say with complete confidence that it looks better than War of the Roses). I’d like to say the sound adds to the atmosphere, but objectively speaking, it too is nothing special.

And when you get down to it, none of that matters in the slightest, because the game is just so darned fun to play. Yes, it’s not as deep or ultimately satisfying in the long run as War of the Roses, but it is more fun and more gratuitous, and ultimately recommended if you can actually stomach it.

This game was reviewed on PC.