How to play
BLADEBORN is a third-person brawler. You are a cube man with three blades in each hand. Click the left and right mouse buttons together to slide the claws out; after that every click is a strike. The left button strikes with the left claw and the right button with the right. A strike lands on whatever is under the dot in the middle of the screen, so aim matters: the head or neck is a kill, the arms knock down a guard, the legs make an enemy limp and then kneel.
Hold the middle mouse button to block. Block just as a hit comes in and it becomes a parry, which knocks the attacker to the ground. Hits and parries fill the finisher bar; when it is full, double-click the left button on an enemy for a finishing move.
Climbing and attacking from above
Jump at a concrete wall and click to drive your claws in. Alternate left and right clicks to climb; A and D swing you round corners; Space jumps off. From a wall, the middle button kills an enemy standing below. In the air, click the same button twice to slam down with a shockwave. Smooth steel cannot be climbed: the claws skid off.
Modes
PLAY drops you into the yard with endless waves that grow each round. STAGES has four levels with plain objectives: fight out of a lab and across a walled compound, cross a forest without being spotted, clear three armed crews in downtown Toronto, and fight up a tower to a boss with two swords. Clearing a stage puts a tick next to it.
Tips
Guns hurt: use cover and climb out of sight. Enemies rarely look up, so walls and rooftops are the safest place to start a fight. Take on one enemy at a time and keep the finisher for the toughest one.
Questions
Does it work on a phone? No. It needs a mouse with three buttons and a keyboard.
Is it violent? Yes. The characters are plain cubes, but there is a lot of red blood and limbs come off.