Blades of Fire PC vs PS5 Review – Forged in Combat, Frayed at the Edges

MercurySteam returns with Blades of Fire, a dark fantasy action-RPG that blends Metroidvania structure with deep weapon crafting and Soulslike combat. Released on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC, we put the game through its paces across both platforms — and benchmarked it on some of today’s top GPUs to see which version delivers the best experience.

Story and Setting

Blades of Fire introduces Aran De Lira and his companion Adso in a world ruled by Queen Nerea, who has cursed steel itself. While the setup is interesting, the storytelling takes a backseat to exploration and crafting. Most narrative beats are delivered via documents and vague cutscenes, which feels underwhelming given MercurySteam’s pedigree with Metroid Dread.

Gameplay & Combat Mechanics

The core gameplay loop centers around forging weapons, managing durability, and swapping between multiple crafted blades. Combat includes directional attacks with different strike zones and real-time stance adjustments. It’s fast, brutal, and satisfying — when it works. Weapon degradation and crafting depth are highlights, but clunky movement and poorly explained systems can bog down the experience.

The game is punishing with the clunkiness of some controls, on purpose. Some weapons are heavy or push your character into the enemy. Stamina management is key, and taking a wrong swing can lead to a huge punishment because you could not get a dodge off in time, because the attack animation did not finish.

Some weapons may not be the right type for a hard battle and may not be able to pierce your enemy’s armor. You have to juggle between perfectly timed strikes so your clunky dodge won’t miss, and you have to fine-tune a forged weapon so it can last long enough for multiple battles and repairs. It all comes together in an interesting system, but one that can sometimes feel tedious, but it’s quite solid and fun to try to get a perfectly forged weapon that you can name yourself.

Combat itself we found to be fun, but we can see it’s going to be very decisive among a large number of gamers. It’s challenging and exciting to juggle multiple enemies – dying has the consequence of leaving your forged weapon behind. We often died with a perfect weapon, and were left we a weapon that could not pierce the armor of the enemies we fought. A heart-pumping mechanic that makes you think twice before that heavy swing that could possibly miss.

PC vs PS5: Which Version is Better?

The PS5 version benefits from tighter controls, near-zero load times, and solid HDR support. Environments pop, and performance is steady with only minor drops. On PC, however, the experience varies wildly depending on your setup. The game lacks a traditional TAA option, forces the use of FSR 3.0/DLSS/XeSS, and has an awkward, mouse-unfriendly UI. Performance issues, including memory bottlenecks and engine hitches, were present even on high-end rigs.

PC Benchmarks – 1440p Ultra Preset

Test System: AMD Ryzen 9800X3D, 64GB DDR5-6400, Windows 11, Game Installed on NVMe 2 PC Benchmarks – 1440p Ultra Preset

GPU	Avg FPS	1% Low FPS
RTX 5090	122	96
RTX 5080	94	76
RTX 5070 Ti	79	66
RTX 5070	72	60
RTX 4090	115	92
RTX 4080 SUPER	102	84
RTX 4070 Ti SUPER	85	70
Radeon RX 7900 XT	90	71
Radeon RX 7800 XT	78	62
ASUS ROG Ally X (Balanced)	41	29

Note: AMD RX 9000 series GPUs encountered severe performance degradation at launch on our system; it improved with another update. NVIDIA cards performed better overall, though the game’s lack of a shader cache and poor threading limits scalability on the highest-end setups.

Visuals and Audio

Graphically, Blades of Fire excels in art direction, not technology. While some textures and effects impress, overall fidelity is inconsistent. It looks great, but not mindblowing – however, it’s fun to be in the world and it’s immersive if you understand what its going for. The sound design is incredible in moments, with a great mix of gnarly and fun. The Mercury Engine 6 delivers vivid biomes but also suffers from inconsistent lighting and asset reuse. Audio design can be equally hit or miss, with generic combat sounds and underwhelming voice acting that fail to elevate the experience.

Final Thoughts

Blades of Fire is packed with smart systems and satisfying combat loops, but technical shortcomings and narrative misfires drag it down. PS5 users will enjoy a more polished, cohesive experience, while PC players should be wary unless equipped with high-end hardware and patience. With updates, the PC version could shine — but at launch, the console has the edge.

Final Score

• PS5: 8/10 – Recommended for Metroidvania & Souls fans
• PC: 6.5/10 – Visually impressive, but performance is inconsistent