We fucking did it bois, the fort’s ours!
August 25, 2020 10:59 AM   Subscribe

Holdfast is a Napoleonic-era roleplaying shooter game with “enjoyably useless” weapons and a “wonderfully silly but vivid class system” that rewards players for standing in line, listening to nearby musicians, and generally following orders from officers. Thanks to a viral video by an excited Scottish lad, it’s exploded in popularity, although public servers can suffer from “catastrophic toxicity”.
posted by adrianhon (17 comments total) 14 users marked this as a favorite
 
Confirmed, that video is really funny. Somehow it's a rollercoaster of emotions even though it's just the same emotion.
posted by saladin at 11:04 AM on August 25, 2020 [6 favorites]


I don't have the hardware to run something like this but it does look really fun.

Back when I binged all the Master and Commander books I was fantasizing about a game very much like this, where a bunch of people would operate and fight a fully realized Napoleonic era battleship. I hope Holdfast takes off so that can be the sequel.
posted by showbiz_liz at 11:07 AM on August 25, 2020 [4 favorites]


Yeah I'm only interested in this if I can expedite the negotiation of a valuable treaty with a Malay sultan whilst my surgeon calmly murders and dissects two traitors and also at some point befriends an orangutan, before we once again find there is not a moment to be lost and crack on to make all sneer again
posted by theodolite at 11:14 AM on August 25, 2020 [11 favorites]


This game looks incredible and totally in my wheelhouse. It has a Mount & Blade vibe to it, but instead of bumbling AIs it's got bumbling actual people.

I did pause for a second at this bit from the Eurogamer article: Basically, you get in line and do what you're told, normally by someone doing their best attempt at a well-to-do British accent. It's wonderful.

Boy, did THAT arrangement not work out well for my ancestors.
posted by ZaphodB at 11:32 AM on August 25, 2020 [16 favorites]


...that rewards players for standing in line, listening to nearby musicians...

Reminds me of my favorite Fire and Sword clip featuring a guy who joins a large multiplayer server and wanders up and down the parapets playing the bugle.
posted by christopherious at 11:54 AM on August 25, 2020 [1 favorite]


As a French Napoleonic re-enactor whose battling has been (rightly) completely curtailed by Covid-19 this year, this should go a considerable way towards plugging the gap. I may even don all my kit to sit and play it.
posted by Morfil Ffyrnig at 12:17 PM on August 25, 2020 [12 favorites]


rewards players for standing in line, listening to nearby musicians...

The gunpowder-based muskets are completely terrible at anything beyond medium range, have huge bullet drop and randomised spread, and take forever to reload between each round,


in other words: pretty accurate to the period.
posted by jb at 12:26 PM on August 25, 2020 [4 favorites]


Reminds me of my favorite Fire and Sword clip featuring a guy who joins a large multiplayer server and wanders up and down the parapets playing the bugle.

They probably shouldn't be playing random bugle tunes during a battle - they are supposed to be for signalling and coordination. Same with the drums.

Do the other soldiers (players or NPCs) react to the music and follow the signals?
posted by jb at 12:30 PM on August 25, 2020 [1 favorite]


in other words: pretty accurate to the period.

I mean, they did end up killing well over a million people.
posted by gucci mane at 1:25 PM on August 25, 2020


Honestly, I want to know what they mean when they say "catastrophic toxicity". I mean I can guess, but I want to have my worst suspicions confirmed.
posted by happyroach at 1:44 PM on August 25, 2020 [1 favorite]


"Catastrophic toxicity".

Ah. So an online multiplayer game, then?
posted by turbid dahlia at 2:48 PM on August 25, 2020 [7 favorites]


I've played a fair amount of Battle Grounds (and it's successors II and III), the Half Life/Source American Revolutionary War mod, and there is nothing quite like a massive, organized line battle, especially once everyone is in sync. It's pretty mesmerizing when the only choices you can make in a multiplayer team battle are after the charge and amount to "Who am I going to stab?" However, and this probably goes without saying especially given the theme of the game, it, too, has catastrophic toxicity.
posted by The Great Big Mulp at 4:02 PM on August 25, 2020 [2 favorites]


I am going to see if I can role-play Marshal Kutuzov. Napping in my tent, eating stupendous meals, slouching on my horse, grunting assent whenever a staff officer comes to me with a plan, but on the whole simply expelling the invader from Holy Russia through sheer force of popular will. Where have I put my matches?
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 4:51 PM on August 25, 2020 [3 favorites]


Will there be a Barry Lyndon DLC?
posted by sneebler at 6:08 PM on August 25, 2020 [2 favorites]


Is there a mod to add Euro Truck Simulator to the mix
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 7:25 PM on August 25, 2020 [1 favorite]


Thanks to a viral video by an excited Scottish lad

I will eat my hat if that gamer is actually Scottish. That is absolutely an excitable American LARPing as a Scot.

Still, looks fun though.
posted by Happy Dave at 7:37 AM on August 26, 2020 [1 favorite]


I mean, they did end up killing well over a million people.

The inaccuracy of your muskets mattered less when you all stood shoulder to shoulder and fired together - that's why they did that. They were also aiming at another line of soldiers standing shoulder to shoulder, or a column of soldiers, in the case of the Napoleonic forces.

Muskets and pistols also weren't the only way people were killed - a lot of people would have been killed by bayonets, cavalry swords and artillery. Artillery could be really awful, especially if you were formed up into a square to keep your company safe from the cavalry, and then the artillery dropped some shells right into the middle of the grouped infantry.

And then, once you've got even a minor wound, you could also be killed by infections! Or communicable diseases.
posted by jb at 11:28 AM on August 26, 2020 [2 favorites]


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