Pirates, Vikings and Knights II (PVK) is a free to play action game that uses medieval style combat and places it into a multiplayer environment where you’ll fight against other players in familiar FPS game modes. Starting as a popular modification for Half Life 2 the game has since become a broader offering.
Pirates, Vikings and Knights II focuses on multiplayer gameplay in a team based environment and centres around three teams of pirates, vikings and knights each with their own symmetry of classes. With a diverse roster of class roles this combat title aims to be strategic in nature while still retaining fast paced exciting gameplay. This class diversity combined with the range of game modes also ensures players will always have a new experience as team compositions, game modes and respective maps rotate to create new combinations.
As the name of this video game suggests it follows a war between three different factions appropriately named the pirates, the vikings and the knights. Currently there are 11 classes available across these three teams with potentially more on the way as the game finalises its development.
Pirates for example have three different classes which includes the skirmisher that is a light foot character that scouts the battle with their cutlass while also having an explosive gunpowder barrel to literally blow up enemies. Other pirate classes include the captain who has the classic pirate hook and parrot and the sharpshooter that feels a sniper archetype by sniping enemies from behind his teammates. Meanwhile Viking players will find the berserker, huscarl, gestir and bondi that utilise dual axes, throwing axes, spears and bows respectively for a diverse roster of Viking raiders. Lastly the knights have access to heavy knights, archer, man-at-arms and an assassin that have access to swords, bows, mace and dagger to offer a broad gameplay mixture.
With variety across the factions and within each class through equipment, playstyle strengths and special moves (on a cooldown) it’s a diverse set of choices as players swap between their favourite class or those that are needed to help balance your current team.
As is the case with first person shooter titles that often utilise multiplayer modes your goal in each game match varies based on the game mode with a mixture of combat and goal focused options available. This includes the familiar team deathmatch, booty (capture the flag), territory, last team standing, objective push and trinket wars that operates like team deathmatch albeit with special powerful trinkets to acquire. Each game mode also has several maps available which do offer a variety of settings including a cathedral, an arena, an island and a temple that require different team tactics to be effective.
While tactics are important each of these modes and map designs emphasise combat encounters which is primarily melee based with players having to balance blocking and attacking with a number of different attack types available for each weapon. Rather than trying to slash wildly players are often rewarded with carefully timed attacked or parries when playing as the melee classes of each faction. Ranged weapons are equally deadly though and a good way to defend the longer map corridors from melee attackers.
Summary:
- A mod for Half Life 2 that has evolved into something broader
- Medieval style combat (melee and ranged) that places three different factions against eachother.
- An array of class options unique to each faction to alter gameplay and strategy.
- Multiple game modes with good map variety allows for a large set of varied experiences.
- Free to play multiplayer medieval combat game.
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Review Platform: PC
