You'll have a chance to turn into one of Warhaven's battle gods at Steam Next Fest

An Immortal charges into battle shielding themselves from a wall of fire

(Image credit: Nexon)

Warhaven, the third-person slash-everyone-in-sight-with-a-sword multiplayer game, is going to be part of June’s Steam Next Fest. So you should start strapping on your plate mail if you want to take part in all the hacking, crashing, and grunting

Following in the armored boots of For Honor and Chivalry, in Warhaven, two teams of 16 players hack each other apart in the name of their side. You can pick from a host of classes and abilities to go alongside the melee-focused combat.

There are six classes to pick from—swordsman, spear fighter, saboteur, healer, hammerer, and someone best described as a freight train armed with a mace. And, whichever class you choose, as you battle, you build up the power to transform into an immortal god. It’s like using an ultimate in a hero shooter; for a short time, you become a giga-powerful celestial being. One of the immortals, Martyr, looks like a cross between Soul Calibur's Sophitia and Elden Ring’s Malenia. Basically, she's an invincible sword princess who will punish anyone foolish enough to get within reach of her blades.

The two game modes include Onslaught, which is a typical attack/defense type situation. One team tries to take territory and the other defends. In Skirmish mode, both teams battle over a central objective, and it was the real winner in the beta. Probably because Skirmish battles inevitably end up with a massive scrum in the middle of the map, accented by cannon blasts from another objective nearby. There was also always a push to hold a respawn point that would let your side’s fallen warriors return to battle more quickly.

Warhaven is slated to go into early access in Q3, and the demo on Steam Next Fest runs from June 19-26.

Russ has been playing PC games since the top of the line graphics were in ASCII and has been obsessed with them just about as long. After a coordinated influence campaign to bamboozle his parents into getting a high speed internet connection to play EverQuest, his fate was well and truly sealed. When he's not writing about videogames, he's teaching karate, cooking an overly complicated dish, or attempting to raise his daughter with a well rounded classical education (Civilization, Doom, and Baldur's Gate, of course). He's probably mapping in Path of Exile right now.