Tiger Knight: Empire War is a PvP-focused action strategy MMO set in the Third Century BC China. Players command an army, master combat moves, and compete in various PvP modes across war-torn Chinese landscapes.

Experience the action-packed medieval warfare in Tiger Knight: Empire War, an MMO strategy action game. Learn and master parrying, attacking, and shielding in four directions. Utilize a range of weapons, from swords to bows to polearms. Create a character from scratch, customizing facial features like eye color, eyebrow shape, age, and nose size. Give commands to troops in battle, ordering them to raid enemy camps, hold a position, or simply follow you around. Unlock new troops, equipment, and adjutants (generals) from different nations and dynasties such as Rome, Wu, Shu, and Wei. Conquer heavily defended forts with your teammates in the Epic War PvE mode. Fight it out with other players and their armies in Team Deathmatch Command mode or fight other Generals in Duel Mode. Join competitive matches to climb up the PvP rankings. Create or join a guild-like Legion, visit the in-game shop to purchase armor and weapons, and participate in events with exclusive rewards.

Full Review

Tiger Knight: Empire War Review

By, Marc Marasigan

Tiger Knight: Empire War is a PvP-focused 3D action strategy game set in 300 B.C. China, an era known as the Warring States period and marked with constant warfare and violence. The game puts players in the shoes of a Chinese general giving orders in the thick of battle. The game’s visuals might not be up to par with other recently released medieval-themed games, and the environments could benefit from a bit more detail, but the game still looks good, especially for a free-to-play game, and one obviously designed for mid-range rigs.

That being said, the game suffers from optimization issues that cause frame drops, especially in battle with hundreds of troops moving around at the same time. The separate lobby and match instances are also a bit of a put-off. Hopefully, these can be ironed out in future updates. Traditional Chinese music plays in the background which works quite well in setting the mood, but is quickly drowned out by the game’s arcade-y sound effects the moment troops clash together.

Lost In Translation

Upon logging in for the first time players go through two tutorial missions. The first tutorial deals with basic movement and combat, while the second focuses on advanced mechanics such as controlling troops in battle and capturing points of interest. While the first tutorial can be skipped, I’d recommend that new players go through it at least once to get the hang of the game’s slightly complex hack-and-slash controls, and gain currency rewards in the process. There are a few parts of the tutorial with translation errors that will have you scratching your head, but nothing that a trial and error and a little bit of common sense can’t fix.

Character Customization

After completing the tutorial, players then proceed to character creation. Tiger Knight: Empire War features a character customization system comparable to other modern MMO’s with a fair number of options for hairstyles and facial features, and sliders to adjust minute facial details like eyebrow thickness and nose width. However, even with these options in place, characters still come out looking the same, much like in Black Desert Online. Not really a problem, considering that you’ll mostly be seeing the back of your character, but the ability to get your character looking just right is a huge bonus to any game, especially for someone who can spend hours in a game stuck in the customization screen.

Hit or Miss

Combat in Tiger Knight: Empire Wars offers a unique take on traditional hack and slash combat. Instead of one-button mashing, the game makes things a bit more complicated with directional attacks. Slide your mouse a little to the left and hit the left mouse button to slash from the left, slide right to slash from the right, slide up to slash down, and slide down to do a piercing attack. Getting the timing right is a big part of combat, especially when using charged attacks or when engaged in mounted combat. You wouldn’t want to be that General who valiantly chases down a running enemy soldier only to miss his attack. Talk about awkward.

Now, this is all well and good in 1vs1 General vs General duels, which take upwards of 20 minutes to queue up for, but in the commonly played 5vs5 Command matches, swinging blindly with any long-handled weapon works just as well. With 20 or more troops fighting it out around you, you’re bound to hit someone eventually, and maybe even kill an opposing General or two. And, you don’t have to worry about hitting friendlies either. Friendly-fire is turned off so you don’t accidentally wipe out your entire unit like the legendary General that you are.

Total War – Chinese Edition

Tiger Knight: Empire Wars’ gameplay combines the action-packed combat of a hack-and-slash game with the micromanagement of real-time strategy games. Think Total War battles in third-person, with the player controlling a character in the middle of the action while also giving orders to a unit of troops. Players can choose between a variety of units to lead into battle, from pike-wielding infantry and archers, to heavily-armored cavalry, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. Infantry for example, are highly vulnerable to archers but can stop charging cavalry in their tracks. Archers, on the other hand, are at the mercy of mounted cavalry.

Units can be upgraded and armed in exchange for Prestige points and Copper, both of which can be earned from battles. While charging into the thick of battle and hacking down enemies left and right surprisingly works very well in the game, knowledge of basic strategy such as placing archers on high ground or running like a coward from a vastly superior force could spell the difference between victory and defeat. Flanking, however, is next to impossible as enemies can easily see your position on the minimap when you get close.

Storm The Fort!

Aside from the PvP-oriented Command and Duel modes, Tiger Knight: Empire Wars also features a co-op PvE mode called Epic War which comes in three difficulties. In this mode, five players work together to capture a heavily fortified AI-controlled fort. Personally, I like this mode better than the PvP-focused ones. With hundreds of troops defending the walled fort and catapult-thrown boulders raining down around you and your allies, Epic War matches last way longer, are much more action-packed, and require more strategic thinking compared to the other two game modes especially at higher difficulties.

VIP’s and Fish Heads

Players who want to have a bit of an edge over others in the game can opt to purchase VIP status, which costs around $4 for 7 days, and around $50 for a year. VIP status gives players 30% more rewards from every battle. Aside from VIP subscriptions, players can also purchase convenience items, like medkits that allow them to heal during battle, and a handful of cosmetic items including goat’s head and fish head helmets among others. I can imagine the goat’s head helmet striking fear into the hearts of the enemy but who, in their right mind, would want to look like a halberd-wielding fish during a battle? Everything else in the cash shop can be bought using in-game currency, most of which need to be unlocked in the tech tree before they can even be bought.

Final Verdict – Good

Tiger Knight: Empire Wars is a solid game with a lot of potential but one plagued by optimization issues, limited maps, and a ridiculously long Duel Mode queue. The combat also feels clunky. That being said, the game places players in the middle of the action, allowing them to experience the violence, and confusion of medieval battles. The matches are fun to play, especially the Epic War mode. Best of all, the game is free so there’s nothing to lose by trying this game out. Overall, a good game and one that I’d recommend, especially if you’re a big medieval warfare nut like me.