Some areas have conveyor belts some have additional platforms that require an attacker to repeatedly place themselves at greater risk. You can approach directly and try to fake-out your opponent with some deceptively mistimed lunges revealing a weakness in their guard. It may be a struggle, but it’s one that never lets you feel helpless or completely outclassed, just because of the ludicrous number of options you’ll typically have at your disposal.Īt any given point you can toss your sword for an extremely aggressive ranged attack (albeit one that leaves you defenseless), or you could try to out-maneuver your foe with jumps and aerials. It’s not uncommon, for example, for a defending player to stop the advance of an attacker at the last moment and press the battlefront all the way back to the beginning of the map. Locked in a sadistic match of reverse tug-of-war, Nidhogg works best when the match is nearing an end. Players will dance around one another, pulling out their best mind-games and vying for better positioning.

Each death brings with it a ludicrous shower of pixelated, monochromatic viscera and a brief opportunity for the killer to make a bit of progress, before having to face off against a revived defender.Ĭompetitive play revolves around a frenetic set of skirmishes. To help along the bloodletting, both players have sabers as well as a handful of acrobatic maneuvers to help cross-up, disarm and ultimately kill the opposition. Both players start off in a neutral area, but must kill to move the game forward in either direction. Two players square off in a linear, 2D arena, both trying to rack up kills and push combat closer to their goals which lie at opposite ends of the map. It’s awkward, creepy and unnerving, but it’s also sinfully hilarious and surprisingly deep. At its most basic level, Nidhogg is an arcade-style fencing game, and it strangely reminds me of what I’d expect Suda 51 to make if he were looking to get into the competitive multiplayer space.

Nidhogg platforms