Sony Chivalry 2 - PlayStation 5

The first Chivalry game effectively launched the high-precision, multiplayer-first melee combat genre, with the likes of the AAA Ubisoft title For Honor and bigger budget indie projects such as Mordhau and Mount & Blade: Bannerlord following in its first-person sw strokes. Now the series that started it is back with Chivalry II! As with the first game, Chivalry II is all about medieval battlefields swarming with other players and it offers up heavyweight combat mixed with a smattering of dark humour modeled after Monty Python. You do have the option of playing as an archer, but melee combat is really what this is all about. You have three basic strikes - downward slash, horizontal slash and stab - but you can get more sophisticated by chaining them together or doing things like rolling your body into a swing. Where the combat gets really artful, however, is when you're on the pointy end of someone else's wea. To block a blow you have to anticipate it and place your wea precisely placed to stop it. When it's good, going one-on-one against a strong enemy feels like a punishing, adrenaline-fueled dance. The highlight has to be the truly epic 64 player battlefields, though. These battles start in true medieval style with everyone charging to the centre of the battlefield, and from there it's a real mess of blood, body parts and flashing steel - thrilling stuff that feels like Game of Thrones come to life. It helps that the environments are big, detailed affairs that allow you to make use of just about anything you find, from anvils to siege wea. Furthermore, multi-phase objectives add narrative clout and make the game feel truly cinematic. In a nutshell, Chivalry II is everything you loved about the first game, but it's tighter, bigger and bloodier than ever.