Mordhau is a game in which players slaughter one another online with medieval weaponry. Within those parameters, there’s still a lot more that players have discovered they can do, from role-playing as fencing referees to taking a break from the fight to shred their brains out on a mandolin. Two players are now making names for themselves by ditching weapons and armor altogether and just punching their foes to death.
Rather than use any of the game’s diverse array of period-appropriate cutlery, two Mordhau players who go by the handles In Pu and Machofish are roaming the game’s servers and role-playing as two brothers in arms. They’re using their characters’ literal arms to deliver bloody beatdowns upon anyone unfortunate enough to cross their paths. It’s like the boxing matches from The Witcher 3 stretched across an entire battlefield. The two players curated their most recent exploits in an excellent video shared on YouTube over the weekend.
This perfectly captures how silly the game allows players to be, but also, just how viable different types of play styles can be for players who really dedicate themselves to thinking outside the box. Mordhau has a number of perks players can earn and equip to their character loadouts to give themselves certain advantages. Not surprisingly, In Pu and Machofish have utilized Brawler, a perk that increases punching damage.
Combined with how fast the game normally allows its characters to punch, this perk can be devastating, as In Pu and Machofish show. But unarmed punching also leaves you completely vulnerable. You can’t block a sword with your forearm. The pair’s penchant for cornering unsuspecting opponents and fighting them two-on-one helps them even those odds.
What makes the whole thing especially entertaining is just how many emotes at players’ disposal in Mordhau. Shrugs, salutes, and “come at me bro” gestures take an already surreal experience and imbue them with that much more personality, and really make it possible for players to lean into the role-playing experience.