Deadliest Warrior game announced

By Robert Purchese Published 14 December, 2009

Who are history's greatest fighters?

Deadliest Warrior, the television show that scientifically matches up history's greatest fighting techniques, is being turned into a game.

Deadliest Warrior: The Game was announced during a video reel at the Spike Video Game Awards 2009.

The clip showed a knight squaring up to a ninja in a forest, each using their relative styles of attack before the video asked, "Who is deadliest?" The knight did have a shuriken thrown in his eye during the confrontation. That probably would have stopped us.

Deadliest Warrior: The Game will be released as a downloadable title in 2010. No platforms were mentioned.

Spike TV makes Deadliest Warrior and the show will return for a second series - find out more on the official website. Not to be confused with Deadliest Catch, which is a show about fishing crabs.

The first Deadliest Warrior: The game video can be found on GameTrailers.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (37) Latest comment 2 years ago

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  • hulahoops #1 2 years ago

    The TV show sounds like simultaneously the greatest and worst idea of all time!

    But mostly the worst.

  • clearblue #2 2 years ago

    Ah.... I was wondering where that terrible storyline idea originated from in Rocky Balboa!

  • madgerald Verified Studio Head of PR & Marketing, Colossal Games LTD #3 2 years ago

    Now, I like ninjitsu and I like kung-fu - but which one is better?

    There's only one way to find out...... FIGHT!!!

  • mull #4 2 years ago

    D0E5 iT H4V3 CHK N0RR15!?!

  • Skurmedel #5 2 years ago

    Is this the show where they kill melons with medieval weaponry, or is this the two "badass" fighter dudes that travel Asia getting beaten up? Or is this the one with the 3D ragdolls? Only the first one is watchable, albeit a bit silly.
    Edited by 1 at 14/12/09 @ 13:59

  • Skurmedel #6 2 years ago

    Also Deadliest Catch could be made into a fantastic grind MMO... it would emulate the TV series pretty well I reckon.

  • Razorus #7 2 years ago

    Even though Ninjas were badasses and Japanese sword fighting in general has more style and skill to it, I strongly doubt they could throw a shuriken into a knight's eye through a visor during a fight. I thought this was going to be a fairly realistic concept, but obviously not.

  • Murton #8 2 years ago

    I just got into this TV show and it's absolutely brilliant, sort of like the combat episodes that Mythbusters did but much more in depth.

    A game could be very interesting, I'm assuming that we'll probably be playing as the various combatants of the first season, which could make for some interesting battles. I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for this.

  • madgerald Verified Studio Head of PR & Marketing, Colossal Games LTD #9 2 years ago

    @Razorus - a ninja would probably lay down a smoke bomb to confuse the knight and then stab him from behind...that's how i would do it.

  • Vinchio #10 2 years ago

    Deadliet Catch the game please!!! That would be amazing. And its an awesome show about fishing FOR crabs, and not crabs that fish.

  • gallow #11 2 years ago

    I hope it has team deathmatch where you can pit the IRA against the Taliban just like in the final episode (IRA won).

  • hidden_asbestos #12 2 years ago

    @Skurmede / Vinchio : Check out http://www. beringseaonline.com/login.aspx
    Edited by 1 at 14/12/09 @ 14:14

  • PearOfAnguish #13 2 years ago

    Anyone remember the old flight sim Chuck Yeager's Air Combat? You could do silly shit like put a MiG-21 up against a WW2 prop fighter. That was fun, this could be too.


    Actually, let's just have a remake of Air Combat.

  • Thalanos #14 2 years ago

    Charlie Brooker showed some of this on his "You Have Been Watching" show

    The IRA vs the Taliban terrorists team deathmatch. Ludicrous!

  • Thalanos #15 2 years ago

    @Vinchio

    They already have a Deadliest Catch game - Deadliest Catch: Alaskan Storm

  • Skurmedel #16 2 years ago

    hidden_asbestos: hmm I guess there's a game for everything.

  • mattigan #17 2 years ago

    I love the fact that Ninjas are touted as badass, as basically fuck all is known about them, such a massive mythology has built up around them that the fact that very little actual fact is known about them is forgotten.

    They would be much more likely to feign sickness/injury to get into the keep, then poison the water supply in the dead of night and take out the entire castle (including the Knight). Than flip out and go toe to toe with an armoured knight then try to zing a ninja star through his eye slit.

  • Murton #18 2 years ago

    Let's be honest, a Ninja would stand no chance at all against a Knight. As we saw in the Ninja vs Spartan episode, the Ninja has a lot of nice tricks and can certainly hurt the Spartan but the Spartan will kill the Ninja, the same applies here with the Knight. With all that armour the Ninja's attack power is pretty much negated, the Ninja might break through that armour or find a weak point eventually but how many hits will it take? The Knight only has to land one blow and the Ninja is dead, game over.

    Realistically the Ninja is going to run a mile from the Knight and come back later when he's sleeping as Mattigan said.

  • madgerald Verified Studio Head of PR & Marketing, Colossal Games LTD #19 2 years ago

    I think the ninja would use a shoge to dis-arm the knight of whatever weapon he had. Then, having speed as an advantage, run circles around the knight until the knight keeled over with exhaustion. The ninja would then go in for the kill..

    Ninja 1 - Knight 0

  • Stegofreak #20 2 years ago

    The show was all right up until the end when they had the fight sequence with was absolutely stupid and didn't realisticly portray what would have happened if the warriors met. Given that the game will most likely focus on this area of the show I can't see it being all that great.

  • smoothpete #21 2 years ago

    I'm thinking that Spetsnaz is probably going to come out on top of this one...

  • Beige_Alert #22 2 years ago

    In a shower somewhere, a 3d artist is curled up naked in a fetal position, crying and desperately trying to feel clean again after making that trailer.

  • jambo74 #23 2 years ago

    Ultimate Fail Predicted

  • YourMessageHere #24 2 years ago

    Obviously, the ninja is the deadliest. Because he is the one hidden in the tree, while his accomplice lures the knight into position and then he throttles the knight from above, his accomplice returning to stab the knight in the armpits as and when he reaches up for the cord. Ninja are not for fighting, they are for infiltration, assassination and underhanded trickery, and one-on-one fair dueling simply isn't part of the deal. Obviously that doesn't seem important to them.

    Never seen this show, of course. Never want to, nor do I want to play their nonsensical Soul Calibre ripoff if this is their attitude. Clearly it's another hit show from the creators of "Apple vs. Orange: Which Is Fruitiest!?".

  • Skurmedel #25 2 years ago

    Both the ninja and the knight would fail when the grunt shows up with a M16...

    Anyway I think such comparisons are completely pointless as a) they would never happen b) the medieval knight emerged to tackle completely different problems, as was the ninja. It's like comparing a fighter jet to a tank.

  • kangarootoo #26 2 years ago

    @Murton

    Pish and tish. Do you know how unweildy and heavy full armour like that is? It is barely manouverable, has terrible visibility and is chock full of "weak points" as you put it (there are gaping holes at every major joint).

    It was designed to be worn on horse back, where none of these issues were such a problem, and if you fell off your horse in battle you were basically f*cked (you would be lucky if you could even get onto your feet before someone stabbed you in the nuts).

    Seriously, I could probably defeat a knight in full plate armour with a carving knife tied to the end of a broom stick. A "ninja" (really just a soldier that was very well trained) would make lunch of a medieval knight.


    On a more serious note (nut only barely), if the whole point of this show is to determine which type of warrior is more effective in combat, what exactly is the point of giving the player a range of warriors in the game? If the show has lived up to its brief, you are just going to choose the one proven best option.

    Unless of cousre it is all tongue in cheek bollox, which is perfectly fine. This show may be greatly entertaining, but it is far from being scientific.

  • jonny8 #27 2 years ago

    I love the show, but only from the point of view of seeing how much damage those old weapons could do. The bit at the end where they do a battle 'recreation' is silly.
    On a side note, there's a story of a ninja that hid in a latrine for days waiting for his target to take a dump. Said target then got a spear up his jacksy. That's how a ninja 'fights'.
    This game looks totally bollox.

  • jonny8 #28 2 years ago

    Many of the books on Agincourt, including Bernard Cornwell's fiction, give a good account of the good and bad points of fighting in full plate. You should try going to the Royal Armouries in Leeds and watching the experts put on recreations there. Those guys can move pretty fast even in all that metal. Vision is restricted once their visors are down though and it's very hard to get up once you're on your back, particularly in a muddy field.

  • RobotRocker #29 2 years ago

    You are all watching Deadliest Warrior wrong

    Turn off brain cells, provide ample amounts of alcohol with rowdy friends, Start arguments about who will win.

    Its totally trashy and historically suspect but my god its stupidly fun. Might be a fun time for a XBLA/PSN game.

  • kangarootoo #30 2 years ago

    @MrParker

    Did the men-at-arms of which you speak wear full plate thought?

    Also, I don't think modern plate is a fair comparison. The guys running reconstructions are using the armour that best suits their needs. A ground display by combatants wearing jousting plate would not make for very interesting watching.

    I've been to the Royal Armouries in Leeds (years and years ago mind), and also the Castle Museum in York. The Castle Museum in particular has a nice exhibit which allows visitors to lift armour from various historic periods via a chain and pulley. The oldest breastplate weighs a f*cking ton, whereas a more recent breastplate was much easier to lift.

    The 100 years war ran from around 1300AD, whereas the Middle Ages spans 5th - 16th centuries. I suppose it comes down to which period of history said plate armour ios coming from, and I concede I had assumed the worst when comparing with a ninja. If the plate was relatively modern, the knight would stand a better chance... but would still get trashed by a skilled and manouverable opponent such as a ninja (a samurai in his pyjamas, if you like).


    Some interesting tit bits. Note the section about being hoisted onto a horse.
    [link url=http://en.w ikipedia.org/wiki/Plate_armour
    ]http://en.w ikipedia.org/wiki/Plate_armour
    [/link]

  • kangarootoo #31 2 years ago

    On a related note, the Mongols didn't wear plate, and they owned the field during their conquests (1200-1300 more or less).

    http://ru bens.anu.edu.au/raid1/cdroms/we...

  • sevenforce #32 2 years ago

    I would not wanna be the poor sap who'd be in charge of gameplay/character balancing for this thing :(

  • Dreddnaught #33 2 years ago

    I thought the Green Beret Vs Spetznatz episode was pretty good.

    Although, some of the tests were hardly scientific, more nonsensical bullshit.

    The Speztnatz grenade was put in a dishwasher, it blew it up but contained the explosion more than the Green Beret grenede that was put in a shower cubicle with a pig carcass - the 'merkin grenade won of course.

    But I was very surprised to see Spetznatz win that episode. Ballistic Knife rules !

  • Murton #34 2 years ago

    Kangarootoo, a Knight wore chainmail under his plate and often carried a shield over it as well, he's more than adequately protected against anything a Ninja could throw at him in hand to hand combat, the fact still remains that as long as the Ninja is close enough to the Knight to fight he's a dead man.

    Also, full plate isn't nearly as heavy as you might think, the troops in Iraq/Afghanistan are carrying more weight than a medieval Knight and they seem pretty mobile to me. Watch an actual battle re-enactment and you'll see that these guys aren't much slower than non-armoured troops and because of that near impenetrable armour they are way more deadly than a normal soldier too.

  • Bluetooth #35 2 years ago

    The modern infantry soldier with an assault rifle will surely kill all other fighting types instantly? He'd lose out to a sniper, but when confined to an arena no-one will stand a chance.

    I guess they won't allow guns.


    Also, the Ninja v Knight scenario is all wrong, indeed the Ninja vs whoever wouldn't exist if he was a proper Ninja i.e. silent kill from nowhere.
    Edited by 1 at 15/12/09 @ 03:02

  • craziii #36 2 years ago

    sorry to burst your bubbles, but ninja is PURE fiction. it didn't exist.

    but I am interested in who is the ultimate out of all the real ones. thanks for bringing the show to my attention.

  • themorganator #37 2 years ago

    loved the series, will investigate the game. Good news!