In a world where neon cybernetics meets the honourable code of medieval chivalry, you’re the realm’s last hope. Chivalware is an upcoming tactical roguelite that tasks you with a pretty heavy burden: marching upon the castle to assassinate a King driven mad by years of isolation. But as you hack and slash your way through this weird techno-feudal kingdom, things start getting weird. Strange digital glitches keep tearing at the screen, hinting that your quest is tied to a much deeper conspiracy than just toppling a corrupt monarch.
One Step From Battle Network!
As part of the preview, I was able to spend a few hours playing the demo and it definitely scratched that “one more run” itch for me. Chivalware fuses strategic tile-matching with high-stakes, real-time grid movement. You have to constantly weave between incoming attacks on the fly, demanding sharp reflexes while you look for openings. On the exact same battlefield, you’ll be matching tiles in sets of three to charge up your abilities, unlock new weapons, and clear the screen. The core loop boils down to a simple, frantic mantra: match tiles, charge abilities, and don’t get hit.
Since it’s a roguelike, failure is just part of the process. Each run pushes you through four distinct biomes, culminating in showdowns against eight brutal bosses who want nothing more than to end your rebellion. Win or lose, you’re always making progress. You’ll permanently unlock new items, weird weapons, and entirely different playable Disk Knights, allowing you to constantly mix up your playstyle so the grind never feels stale.
Visuals & Audio
Both the sounds and visuals are super arcade-y in the most complimentary way. As you match different tiles to equip and recharge weapons your Disk Knight will change colour to match what you have equipped, big flashing red squares will warn you of where 8 bit bugs, skeletons or weird robots are planning to attack alongside. Failing to continue a combo chain gives a flat womp, almost an exhale as you lose a bit of energy, where as successfully charging up an firing off your attacks all have there own unique sound and visual for whatever weapon you may be using.
There’s a few niggles here and there, with some of the more randomly placed attacks feeling like the visual cues and the time provided to dodge were a little tight – but it is a roguelite so your familiarity with the systems and the enemies will probably mitigate that if you sink some time in. The only other niggle I found when I was playing was that at the end of each biome there seems to be an abundance of shops (almost always at least 2 in a row), but there’s not really a way to get lots of money to take advantage of that in stage one, and I’d have rather had another chance at an upgrade through a combat encounter or a guaranteed rest site pre boss.
Preview Impressions
I was super excited to jump into Chivalware after I first saw it, and it definitely lived up to my own hype for it.Even though I’ve only had an hour or so with the preview build, getting used to the matching, repositioning and firing off weapons is already clicking and the permanent unlocks as you work your way up the arcade style leaderboard on the end screen always make me want to jump in to try out something new, or bash my head against the boss again.
Definitely something for fans of fast paced arcade titles, and I for one I’m really looking forward to putting more time in to when it releases.
