Holdfast: Nations Of War Review

Well, seeing Holdfast: Nations Of War land on Xbox Series X|S a few weeks ago was a nice surprise. I’m always saying we need more shooters in the gaming space on consoles. With games like Call of Duty, Fortnite and Rainbow Six Siege dominating the genre, we don’t see many more taking the risk. This title is over five years old for PC and sits with over 23,000 reviews on Steam with a “Very Positive” status. With the game being a battlefield-esque experience, bringing 150-player servers with full crossplay functionality, I was more than keen to get stuck in.

Huge Scale Battles

Holdfast: Nations Of War from Anvil Game Studios is a first and third-person shooter title set across two historical eras of war. You’ll be able to delve into World War I and Napoleonic online multiplayer battles. How the game plays and operates feels quite similar to the Chivalry games, and whilst not as graphically rich, it is just as much fun. With 75 vs 75 wars, the scale of each match becomes historically impressive, and the proximity chat adds to the immersion.

Combat is clunky and takes a fair amount of patience. In the Napoleonic battles, the muskets took a lengthy amount of time to reload between each shot. This was the most difficult factor for me to become used to, as the pacing feels very slow. Eventually, though, you pick your battles as if you’re like me, you’ll miss several shots before you pick up a kill. I started to find my enjoyment in the strategy rather than going blazing in every time I respawned; it isn’t a run-and-gun affair.

Modes, Maps & More

Holdfast: Nations Of War has an impressive bang for your buck when it comes to the content on offer. The range of maps is 70+ strong, with a variance in layout and location. With naval battles and the World War 1 mode, you never really run the risk of playing the same match twice in a row. With 27 different classes to choose from, riflemen to cavalry and even artillery options, there is a class for everyone. Spots in certain classes are limited so that a particular class isn’t dominated.

There are many modes throughout the game, with Conquest being my personal favourite. This is similar in many ways to the classic Battlefield mode, where you are required to capture and hold certain areas spread throughout the whole map. Siege was another mode I was keen on, where one team defends a position while the other team attacks. Naval options are available if you’re into ship combat and navigating the seas.

Visuals & Audio

With Holdfast: Nations Of War being over five years old now, you can tell that the visual presentation is a generation behind. Backdrops and textures aren’t as detailed as I’d like them to be, with draw distance being a little muddy. But the majority of the time, you’re involved in tense firefights, to pay too much attention to taking in the views.

Load times are super fast, and browsing through the server browser is simple through the in-game menus. For the most part, the game runs smoothly despite those dated visuals. When it comes to the audio, the most noticeable part is muskets cracking shots at each other on the battlefield. Mix this with musicians circling and playing music, and it makes the atmosphere feel historically accurate. Explosions and naval ships feel punchy and weighty, bringing a sense of realism into play.

Final Thoughts

Holdfast: Nations Of War is a brilliant addition to consoles, and whilst it is showing its age now, it still brings chaotic fun with its huge player number. When I first played, I became frustrated with the pacing and the slow reload on weaponry, but the experience did grow on me over time.

It isn’t the smoothest port of a game I’ve seen, with some glaringly obvious issues, and there is a fair bit of clunk. But nothing I’ve witnessed is game-breaking, and I’ve had a ton of fun with the community aspect. I’ve never seen a game with so many players engaging in game chat since the Xbox 360 days, before party chat became an option. Players from all over the globe bantering, working together, and just laughing at the chaos. For its low price point of £16.74, it is well worth the investment if you love huge online multiplayer battles.