Weapons, powers and the things worth fighting

How fighting works

You start empty-handed. Q draws your blade or puts it away, and pressing it again cycles through the blades you own; a left click or F attacks, with half a second between strikes. Bare fists do 2 damage. By default the game turns you to face the nearest foe. Switch to mouse aim with P and you hit only what you point at, which is harder, and is the only way to earn the Deadeye achievement.

Weapons come in two tiers, ordinary and Mythic. An ordinary blade hits the nearest foe in front of you. A Mythic blade hits every foe within its reach, all the way round you, and only a Mythic weapon can hurt the three great beasts and the dragon Níðhöggr. Hit a great beast with anything less and it will only be provoked.

There is no fighting other players in the open world. No weapon can hurt another player there; the most a big blast does is knock someone off their feet. Player against player happens only in the Arena and the Crucible's Colosseum. No weapon is sold in any shop, and every new blade pays 250 credits the first time you claim it. Each one is earned in one of four ways: found lying somewhere, won by answering a riddle, granted the moment you complete a feat, or forged by solving a mystery. The Armoury (I) shows a locked blade as ？？？ with a hint, or with the feat it needs and how close you are.

The fifteen weapons

Damage is per strike. Ten of the fifteen are Mythic.

The Worldender has the hardest swing of the fifteen, but the charged throws of the Astral Bow, the Leviathan Axe and Mjölnir hit harder still. Two characters from the Store carry a weapon of their own: Thor holds Mjölnir, and Loki holds the Serpent Sceptre, which fires bolts out to 60 metres and exists only in his hand. Each costs 45,000 credits, earned in the game. Blades that rank above the one in your hand are drawn automatically when you win them, and the whole world hears about it.

Signature attacks

The starter blades chop, and the next tier swings a fuller slash. The top weapons each have a signature attack, and some of them change how you fight entirely.

• Whirl (Starcleaver, Dawnbringer): the blade held out in three full spins in under a second, hitting everything round you.
• Thunder (Stormlord, Gravewarden, Leviathan Fang): the blade raised to call lightning down, then an overhead cleave with lightning along its arc.
• Smash (Worldender only): a leap more than five metres into the air and a slam that sends a shockwave out from your feet, hitting and knocking back everything within six metres.
• Mjölnir is thrown. Click and it flies to the nearest foe within 60 metres and strikes everything around where it lands. Hold, and it hovers there pulsing blasts that grow wider and stronger for about three seconds. Let go, and it snaps back to your hand with a thunderclap round you that grows the longer it was out.
• The Astral Bow fires homing star-arrows at the nearest foe within 70 metres. A quick click is a snap shot; hold for 1.6 seconds to draw fully for triple damage and a much bigger blast.
• The Leviathan Axe swings normally on a tap. Hold it for up to 2.5 seconds to cover it in frost, then release to hurl it as far as 75 metres. It bursts in frost and freezes what it hits for four seconds, then flies home and slams down an ice shockwave. Anything frozen shatters for more than double damage on the next hit.

Powers

Powers are earned out in the world and stay yours. On a phone, each one you own gets a button.

Health, levels and dying

Your health is 60 plus 3 for every level: 63 at level 1 and 210 at level 50. Each level also cuts the damage you take by a little over one percent, up to 60 percent less at level 50. That is all levels do in a fight. They come from what you have done across ten completion tracks, and the guide lists them.

The health bar stays hidden until something hurts you, and the first hit of a fight only dazes you for a moment. Go eight seconds without being hurt and you are back to full. There are no potions or healing items, and nothing heals you inside the Hollow or the Rift. Nobody can hurt you while you drive. If you fall, you wake in the starting meadow with full health, and nothing is taken from you: no items and no credits.

The three great beasts

The Yeti, the Shark and Bigfoot can only be wounded by a Mythic weapon or a fully charged Power Blast. The first swing with anything less gets you shoved away and dazed; keep swinging and each blow costs you 16 health. They never heal, and each returns 75 seconds after it falls. Whoever lands the killing blow earns 600 credits the first time, and felling all three wins Mjölnir. Each has a Hunt leaderboard for the fastest solo kill.

The lion

The savanna's lion is an animal, not a great beast, so any weapon hurts him, and he has 60 health and a 26-damage mauling. He is not always out: he spends long stretches on the plain and long stretches in his den in the rocks. He never starts a fight. Attack him, or stand within about 14 metres of him for five seconds, and he will finish it, but he turns, stares and roars first, so you always get a warning. Fell him and his den holds the Lion-Man form. The animals page has more about him.

The Hollow

The Hollow is a dark maze in the deep south of the world, reached over the Bifröst, a rainbow causeway. Its walls are thirteen metres tall and nothing flies over them, and nothing heals inside. If you fall you come back at the far end of the Bifröst. Its creatures can be hurt with any weapon, even fists, and they pay shards. Each ring closer to the centre is tougher, and some lie still until you walk past.

Health is the outer ring's. Close-up attacks are marked by a ring on the ground before they land, so stepping out of it is a dodge. At the heart is the King's chamber, guarded by two Wardens with 900 health each that heal if you back away. The first Warden you beat gives you the Hollowsilk shirt.

The Hollow King is an eleven-metre frost lich with a crown of ice and a frost greatsword, and 3,000 health. He strikes hard up close and throws bolts at anyone he can see within 34 metres. He never leaves the axe's plinth, and if you back off he heals to full in about seven seconds, so the fight is won in one go. Fell him and you take Hollowbrand, the Power Blast, the Hollow Crown, the Dark Aura and 1,200 credits the first time, with Gravewarden as well if you already hold the Leviathan Axe. The axe can be claimed just by reaching it; the King does not have to fall first.

Níðhöggr, the world dragon

Two nights in three, never missing two in a row, something enormous crosses the stars. Níðhöggr circles the world and lands at the Hollow or on the savanna, alternating from day to day. He is 32 metres from nose to tail with a 41-metre wingspan, and he is built to be fought by everyone in the world at once: his health grows as more players join the fight and never shrinks. Only Mythic weapons hurt him, and while he is in the air only the Astral Bow, a thrown Mjölnir and a hurled Leviathan Axe can reach him.

Every attack has a wind-up you can read, and his aim locks partway through it, so stepping aside works. His fire breath reaches 46 metres, and a bite, claw or tail sweep does 34 damage. As he weakens he adds a move at a time:

Hit him hard enough, fast enough, and his legs go: for five and a half seconds he is on the ground taking double damage. He leaves only when he falls, or once it is day and nobody has hit him for three minutes, and he breathes on everyone still fighting as he goes.

His hoard is shared. Everyone who hurt him is paid in proportion to their damage, about 2,200 credits for a solo kill and around 1,100 each in a full world, and the first dragon you ever help kill adds 2,500 more. If he gets away you are still paid a share for the damage you did. Each win also earns a tier of dragon-scale armour that cuts all the damage you take in the world: Scaleplate, Emberscale, Ashenmail, Wyrmgold and finally Níðhöggr's Own, at 45 percent. One win is enough to call him as a mount with ⇧E and fly him.

The Rift

Behind the Rift's gate are two realms, the Sky-Realm and the Underworld, a sunken cavern beneath the lake. The rules change in there: no flying, no healing, a triple jump with the odd lucky fourth, and a fall is the end of you. Each realm has its own creatures and its own bosses: the Star-Seraph at the Dreaming Altar, who gives up Dawnbringer, and the Void Leviathan in the Dark Pool, who gives up the Leviathan Fang. Star-shards and relics hidden in both realms unlock cosmetics, and the Starcleaver lies in there somewhere too. The world page has more about getting there.

The Arena and the Crucible

Every eight to twenty minutes a glowing door tears open somewhere on the map for two minutes. Step through and you are in the Arena, with up to twelve players. In a short lobby everyone votes for waves of enemies or a team match, and picks one of four classes. The classes are trade-offs, not upgrades.

Wave mode never ends: every wave is a little tougher than the last, and every fifth is a boss wave. A run pays 10 shards plus 8 for every wave. Team matches last three minutes or until a side reaches 30 kills, with bots filling in, and pay 60 shards for a win and 20 for a loss. Seven badges mark the milestones, from First Blood for a match win to Unbroken at wave 50, and your rank climbs from Bronze through Silver, Gold, Platinum and Diamond to Apex. Shards buy vehicles, shirts and a Mayan headdress in the Arena shop, and every vehicle there can also be won free; the vehicles page lists how.

The Crucible is a black gate by the cave mouth, open to everyone. Inside are the Gauntlet, solo waves that get much harder much faster, and the Colosseum, a free-for-all pit for whoever else turns up. Conquer the Gauntlet and the Stormlord is yours.