Today, Blades of Fire publisher 505 Games announced a rather unusual offer. They’ll be giving away free digital copies of the game (presumably handing out redeemable codes) at London Comic-Con in three weeks, on Friday, May 23. There’s a pretty big caveat, though: you have to be celebrating your Steel Wedding (11-year) anniversary on May 22. That means you only get a free copy if you were married on May 22, 2014, and can bring a wedding certificate (or copy/photo) attesting to this.
The seemingly arbitrary date is obviously a reference to the game’s launch date, set for May 22, 2025 on PC (only on the Epic Games Store, at least for now), PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series S|X. The game will be priced at $59.99, although there’s a 10% pre-order discount available now on PC and Xbox. PlayStation users can also get the same discount, but only if they have an active PlayStation Plus subscription. As a side note, if you want to play on PC but don’t have a good enough hardware (the system requirements are fairly demanding), the game will be playable via cloud through NVIDIA GeForce NOW.
Blades of Fire had a relatively short marketing period, having been revealed only in late February. However, MercurySteam has shared many details on the action/adventure game since. The title is set in a fantasy world where the evil queen Nerea has magically turned everyone’s steel into stone, making it impossible to challenge her rule. However, protagonist Aran de Lira receives a unique hammer that isn’t affected by the curse and sets out on a journey to take her down.
Forging weapons is, therefore, a big part of the game. Not only are there seven weapon families and 30 Forge Scrolls, but even the choice of materials will greatly influence the crafted weapon, leading to many different combinations. It will be up to the player to choose the right tool for the job, too, as weapons can have wildly different efficiencies depending on the enemy’s armor. With over 50 enemy types, players will have to keep track of each one’s strengths and weaknesses. The combat system also lets players attack specific body parts.
MercurySteam also said that Blades of Fire is narrative-driven. At the same time, players will decide how much they want to know about the story. One way to do that is by engaging in dialogue with Aran’s companion, the young scholar Adso de Zelk, who is something of a human encyclopedia.
After going hands-on with the game at GDC 2025, Kai Tatsumoto was quite interested in the final game:
MercurySteam’s strange AA blacksmithing adventure wasn’t on my radar before going to GDC after missing the initial preview event, but after going hands-on for an hour or so, I was pleasantly surprised with their latest unique IP. It’s just unique enough with the strong emphasis on forging and reforging that gives this action adventure a hook that I haven’t seen done before to this extent. The actual story itself could be a standard fantasy slop, and I’d still be on board for crafting a massive warhammer and just playing out my barbarian fantasies.
By the way, a new Blades of Fire trailer will go live later today during Future Game Show’s Gamescom LATAM edition. We’ll update this story once it is available.
