Nidhogg

Nidhogg is a two-player fencing tug-of-war in which you fight your way through an arena to reach your goal zone. You use lunges, parries and sword throws when armed; without a sword, you can punch, sweep kick, dive kick, roll and wall jump. Opponents keep spawning in your path, and defeating one only gives you ground: a series of kills grants you the right of way to run, fight or flee toward your goal.

Arenas and combat

The combat arenas stretch in both directions, with rooms, strategic formations and chokepoints to use against your opponent. The five arenas are Castle, Wilds, Mines, Clouds and Fields. Each has multiple rooms that test your skills and offer ways to exploit your opponent’s weaknesses.

Game modes

You can play locally against another player, compete in local tournaments, fight online or practice against AI opponents in single-player Arcade Mode. Local tournaments support 3 to 8 players, while online matchmaking lets you challenge friends or find a match, with rollback netcode. Arcade Mode also includes speedruns and leaderboards.

Game variants

In offline multiplayer and tournament mode, you can change the rules by enabling or disabling variants:

• Spine Swords
• Slow Mode
• Trails
• Boomerang Swords
• Time Limit
• No swords
• No Throws
• Throws only
• Divekicks
• Baby Mode
• Low gravity
• Sudden Death Only
• Skippy Mode
• Turbo Mode

Music and achievements

Daedelus created the electronic music, which changes dynamically and is different with each play-through. Achievements challenge you across all modes.