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First Cut: Samurai Duel
Every strike is lethal in this blood-soaked sword fighting game. Slash, clash, parry, dodge and watch limbs fly. Choose your move carefully - the first cut is also the last.
What players say
Steam review score and the most-helpful voices, which may include critical ones. Score via Steam as of 2026-09-02 · quoted reviews as of 2026-05-13.
What reviewers agree on
42 of the 94 reviews raise this.
“The concept of the game is good and the gameplay is solid and fun. However AI its not fair. It reacts instantly to your actions and has unhuman reflexes and doesn't have a predictable pattern at all. Sometimes when I…”
“Listen, it's great, I love it; it pisses me off, but I love it. I think the older demo version on itch was better mechanics-wise, but this is still a good concept and it's well executed.”
“This game rocks. Good aesthetic and soundtrack. The swordplay is easy to learn but surprisingly deep. Very high skill ceiling. Duels with your friends are awesome, though IMO the real attraction is the horde survival…”
17 of the 94 reviews raise this.
“This game rocks. Good aesthetic and soundtrack. The swordplay is easy to learn but surprisingly deep. Very high skill ceiling. Duels with your friends are awesome, though IMO the real attraction is the horde survival…”
“its not just fun, its rewarding, the game uses the pixel art style masterfully. the way the blood interacts with everything never gets old, hope online gets added on in the future”
“This game is honestly amazing. Everything you could want from this game it has. crazy good customization, satisfying, simple, yet hard to master comabt. extra game customization from characters having lightsabers, black…”
14 of the 94 reviews raise this.
“a really hard game but so easy to fall in love with. wish it was online multiplayer and it had a longer chapter but cant complain for how cheap it is <3”
“This game rocks. Good aesthetic and soundtrack. The swordplay is easy to learn but surprisingly deep. Very high skill ceiling. Duels with your friends are awesome, though IMO the real attraction is the horde survival…”
“This game has a high skillfloor and it feels amazing when you get through it. When you do some cool ♥♥♥♥, it is actually cool cause its as hard as it looks. I wish it had any online multiplayer support.”
9 of the 94 reviews raise this.
“This game rocks. Good aesthetic and soundtrack. The swordplay is easy to learn but surprisingly deep. Very high skill ceiling. Duels with your friends are awesome, though IMO the real attraction is the horde survival…”
“This game is honestly amazing. Everything you could want from this game it has. crazy good customization, satisfying, simple, yet hard to master comabt. extra game customization from characters having lightsabers, black…”
“Game is great and like it says on the tin, every strike is lethal. There is no armour, no hyper armour, no getting around it, you get hit you die and the same for your enemies. Offers very fast paced fights that can end…”
8 of the 94 reviews raise this.
“a really hard game but so easy to fall in love with. wish it was online multiplayer and it had a longer chapter but cant complain for how cheap it is <3”
“very good worth the money the fights are so cinematic”
“Best 25 AED I spent, so much fun with local multiplayer.”
23 of the 94 reviews raise this · 17 of them still recommend the game.
“The concept of the game is good and the gameplay is solid and fun. However AI its not fair. It reacts instantly to your actions and has unhuman reflexes and doesn't have a predictable pattern at all. Sometimes when I…”
“"Haha omae wa mou shindeiru type shi-" Me before throwing my mouse at a wall at mach 5 after I die for the 1696742th time.”
“As someone that loves fighting games, this is incredibly unintuitive and the reaction times of the AI is ridiculous. Hard pass.”
12 of the 94 reviews raise this · 12 of them still recommend the game.
“a really hard game but so easy to fall in love with. wish it was online multiplayer and it had a longer chapter but cant complain for how cheap it is <3”
“This game rocks. Good aesthetic and soundtrack. The swordplay is easy to learn but surprisingly deep. Very high skill ceiling. Duels with your friends are awesome, though IMO the real attraction is the horde survival…”
“This game has a high skillfloor and it feels amazing when you get through it. When you do some cool ♥♥♥♥, it is actually cool cause its as hard as it looks. I wish it had any online multiplayer support.”
11 of the 94 reviews raise this · 3 of them still recommend the game.
“The concept of the game is good and the gameplay is solid and fun. However AI its not fair. It reacts instantly to your actions and has unhuman reflexes and doesn't have a predictable pattern at all. Sometimes when I…”
“As someone that loves fighting games, this is incredibly unintuitive and the reaction times of the AI is ridiculous. Hard pass.”
“Listen, it's great, I love it; it pisses me off, but I love it. I think the older demo version on itch was better mechanics-wise, but this is still a good concept and it's well executed.”
3 of the 94 reviews raise this · 1 of them still recommend the game.
“As someone that loves fighting games, this is incredibly unintuitive and the reaction times of the AI is ridiculous. Hard pass.”
“Not as fun as it looks, since the controls are hard, and the combat itself feels very unfair”
Counted across 94 English reviews, sampled to match this game's 88.5% positive rating · as of 2026-05-13
“this game was so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hard it made me break my headset because of the bandits on nightfall fighting like prime jin sakai but i would replay this game on yabai”
— a player, Steam review · 5 hrs played“Pretty much everything I could want from a Side Scroller, Hack and Slash, Martial Arts, 2D fighter, PVP, PVE, Arcade, Swordplay, Character Customisation, Blood, 2D, Fighting, Pixel Graphics, Historical, Action, Combat, Local Multiplayer, Atmospheric, Co-op game.”
— a player, Steam review · 17 hrs played“GET THIS GAAAAAAMMMMMEEE My god this game is fantastic. Its simple, hit and don't get hit. Attacks kill on one hit and you get killed on one hit. Everything from the music, the atmosphere, the controls, and the combat is just top notch. I highly recommend you play with a friend…”
— a player, Steam review · 12 hrs playedPlayer activity
Monthly average concurrent players. Live data self-collected from the Steam API · history through 2026-06 via SteamCharts.
Achievement stats
Global completion rates across all Steam players — a data view of how far people actually get. Source: Steam official stats · as of 2026-09-05.
Price tracking
US-region pricing (USD), sampled twice daily by our own tracker since 2026-07-11. Steam prices vary by region — always confirm your local price on Steam.
Regional prices at last sample, in local currency — Steam sets each region's price independently.
Cheapest → most expensive, converted to USD at ECB reference rates (2026-09-04). Relative comparison only.
Latest official news
Developer announcements via the Steam news API — links go to the original posts. More across all games on the news hub.
Patch Notes: Version 1.31
Hello, sorry for the wait. This update adds Japanese, Chinese and Korean language support. Thanks to Kurono Studios for the localisations. The game is 50% off for a week to celebrate. It also adds a n
Patch Notes: Version 1.3
Hello everyone, After a long vacation and moving places I'm back to working on updates. This one is just to fix the memory leak issue which was reported to me, but there will be more to come. Thanks t
Patch Notes: Version 1.29
Hello everyone, This patch contains a few mechanical and AI tweaks. Blocking from behind has been buffed, and enemies now have slightly better tracking. This should barely affect lower-difficulty enem
Patch Notes: Version 1.28
Hello everyone, just a small patch for now. I'm currently testing some AI improvements but they will need lots of testing and I didn't want to further delay this update. This update adds a native achi
Patch Notes: Version 1.27
Hello everyone, time for another update. The most extensive change in this update is improvements to the Laser Swords Extra. It's a very popular feature so I decided it'd be fun to give it some extra
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Screenshots
Official Steam store screenshots — click any shot to enlarge.
Facts & details
From the Steam store record, snapshot 2026-05-13.
| Genres | Action, Indie |
| Player tags | Side Scroller · Hack and Slash · Martial Arts · 2D Fighter · PvP · PvE · Arcade · Swordplay · Character Customization · 2D · Fighting · Pixel Graphics (SteamSpy community voting) |
| Features | Single-player · Multi-player · PvP · Shared/Split Screen PvP · Shared/Split Screen · Steam Achievements · Full controller support · Steam Leaderboards |
| Languages | English |
| Controller | Full support |
| Achievements | 19 |
Minimum system requirements (PC)
Minimum: OS *: Windows 7 Processor: Intel Core i3-2100 or comparable Memory: 2 GB RAM Graphics: Intel HD Graphics or comparable DirectX: Version 9.0 Storage: 150 MB available space