War of the Roses is an action hack and slash video game developed by Fatshark and released by Paradox Interactive. The game is set during the Wars of the Roses which took place in England during the 15th century. It was released on 2 October 2012. War of the Roses was well received for its extensive customisation enabling character configurations to be tailored to very specific tastes and for its original "control scheme to tackle a new kind of combat with the aim of creating a completely different experience". The game shut down on 28 February 2017.
A follow-up, War of the Vikings, was released in 2014, but was shut down in 2017.
Gameplay
War of the Roses puts the player in control of a single, customizable soldier fighting for either the House of Lancaster or the House of York. The game plays mainly in a third-person viewpoint and is a multiplayer game. There are three different types of weapons which the player can equip at a single time: primary, secondary, and a dagger.
The player starts with a pre-made melee character, the footman, but will quickly unlock a pre-made Guardsman (originally this was a crossbowman), longbowman and footknight. The pre-made characters have a competitive set-up and are viable characters to play. However, there are also 8 custom slots to unlock which can be customised with weapons, weapon modifiers, armour and perks of the player's choice. At higher levels, horses can be unlocked to allow a cavalry class.
Players can change their selected characters within a round and can modify the profiles of the custom classes between rounds.
The hitboxes are quite precise and the damage is calculated based on whether the hit strikes armour of various materials or flesh and which part of the weapon strikes.
A defeated player may be killed outright or simply 'downed' in which state they can be killed off with an execution move, revived by a teammate or choose to respawn. As with most aspects of the game each choice is a risk/reward scenario.
Once dead a player can choose to respawn in a respawn location for the team or on a 'squad leader' if the player has selected a squad.
There are currently four game modes to choose from. One is a standard team deathmatch game mode. The objective of Conquest is to conquer checkpoints in order. Each team starts at their home spawn points and moves towards the enemy spawn points. Conquering a checkpoint unlocks the next in the sequence. Checkpoints are conquered by standing close to the flag; the more team members are in place, the faster the point is captured. Coloured letters indicate the status of each checkpoint. A "pitched battle" is a single life mode in which the winning team has the last man standing. After a server-set time, the battle area shrinks, forcing the remaining players into combat. The Assault game mode has Lancastrians attempting to take over defensive positions held by the Yorkists. Each map has a series of checkpoints to be taken within a limited time. If the checkpoint is taken the attackers get an increase in time to take the next checkpoint. The game ends when the Lancastrians take the final checkpoint or the Yorkists hold out for the allotted time.
There is also a coat of arms maker that allows substantial customization. The arms are shown on shields and armour and allow players to recognize each other in battle.
On 6 February 2013, a free to play version of War of the Roses was released on the Steam digital distribution platform. This trial version includes access to most online servers, enabling trial players to play alongside existing players, whether paid or trial, but private servers may opt out of allowing trial players to join. The trial version limits players by disallowing any unlocks, giving access only to the game's base classes and weapons. Trial players are limited to only two of the game modes, TDM and Conquest, and gain experience and gold at 80% of the full rate, which increases to normal rate if the full game is purchased using the same account. Trial Players also do not have access to the Battleground trainer, so there is no tutorial for Trial players.
Competitive Play
War of the Roses had a competitive scene with both duel based and clan match based competitions.
The first War of the Roses tournament was held while the game was still in alpha at DreamHack Summer 2012 in Elmia, Jönköping, Sweden. The final was held on the DreamArena Extreme stage on 17 June 2013 and shown on DreamHack TV. The winning team shared a prize purse of US$5000 and headsets from Plantronics.