Saturday Night Action Movie - Melee: Battlegrounds

Oh, I know you're still awake. You didn't think old Alice would catch you keen to see blood, guts, and gore in the midnight movie, did you? Don't worry. Even this old maid was young once. I've split a skull or two in my time, I don't mind telling you. Come on, budge up. Let's have a look at this killing together. Melee: Battlegrounds is made by folks behind Mount & Blade: Warband's cRPG mod, don't you know? Ayup, they're turning to Kickstarter to fund their own standalone medieval multiplayer murderfest.

Developers Donkey Crew are calling Melee: Battlegrounds a "spiritual sequel" to their mod, and it's accordingly all a fair bit like Mount & Blade's multiplayer. The basics: melee-focused man-murdering, with a few bows and things, with super-dangerous damage and a real need to fight carefully yourself and fight tactically as a team. They're dreaming of hundreds of players in modes from plain old arena deathmatch to an RTS-ish one where teams gather resources, build up a stronghold, and assault their enemies with siege weaponry.

That there Stronghold mode sounds like something special, so watch this video about it. But here's the general-purpose Kickstarter pitch video:

Having worked on Melee for almost two years on $45,000 the cRPG community put together, Donkey Crew are looking for $130,000 (£83 large) to stop working remotely, get office space together, and finish development. Pledging $21 (£13.50) would get you a copy of the finished game, which they aim to release in March 2016.

Mount & Blade II is looking pretty swanky all right but TaleWorlds stand pretty much unopposed within the genre, so a little competition might be nice to keep them on their toes.