It’s a literal back-and-forth to match the metaphorical back-and-forth of sword fights themselves. It also adds a fun narrative to each fight, as both players push and pull their way across the battlefield. Victory isn’t just about sword skills, but also knowing when to run, when to go for the kill, and when to cause distraction. This arrow introduces a whole other level of strategy to Nidhogg. If you don’t have “the arrow” then you want to engage your opponent at every opportunity so that you might kill him and earn “the arrow” for yourself. You should instead find a way around your opponent so you can keep running to your goal, the end screen. If you have “the arrow” then it’s not actually in your best interest to fight. The game throws in a tug-of-war twist in which you fight for “the arrow,” which allows one character to pan the screen while the other fights to stop him. It’s an exhausting game, the kind that can’t be played for long periods of time, and your sigh of relief at the end of every match is rewarding regardless of whether you win or lose.įor as much as Nidhogg sells itself on the fencing, fighting is not always necessary. It’s fast paced to the point where seconds seem like an eternity, and every little flick of a control stick, every single pixel of movement, carries the weight of victory or defeat.

All it takes to kill someone is the slightest prick of a sword, so death comes fast, often, and unexpectedly. Nidhogg is similar in spirit to last year’s Divekick in that it plays like the last five seconds of a fighting game match. You have to understand the controls as an extension of yourself, so that you act based on split-second predictions rather than spit-second reactions. It’s important that you feel comfortable with the controls because Nidhogg is built around split-second decisions. These simple controls are explained in a good tutorial, and the buttons for each movement can be remapped on a controller or keyboard as you see fit. You can step forwards or backwards, lunge in to attack, duck, jump, or divekick down at an angle if you attack in the air. The basics: Two pixelated fighters face off against each other with swords on a 2D plane. Nidhogg is best described as a fencing game, save for one important rule change.

This makes for an excellent game when you’re in the moment, embracing that one exceptional thing, but it also means the game doesn’t have much to offer other than its one very well-executed mechanic. It’s the kind of game that sets out to do one thing, and it does that one thing exceptionally well.

Nidhogg controls