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Minimalist fencing brawler Nidhogg due this month

Breakfast of champions.

Mark "Messof" Essen's minimalist dueling game Nidhogg is coming to Steam on 13th January, the developer has announced.

Nidhogg has made quite the splash around the indie scene over the past few years where it's won the Nuovo award at the 2011 IGF and Fantastic Arcade's Bloodsport of the Year award in 2010.

The premise is simple: Two players spawn in a stage facing each other. The goal is to reach the end of the level, running in the direction in which you spawn until you get eaten by the mythical Norse dragon Nidhogg. Naturally, you'll want to slaughter your opponent, though they can simply bypass you with a smooth evade. Each stage is comprised of several sections and your opponent will endlessly respawn upon death, so simply overcoming them once isn't enough.

It sounds simple, but its two-button control scheme masks a complex move set of stabs, sword-throws, punches, dive kicks, ledge grabs, rolling evades, and wall jumps.

While Nidhogg was previously only a two-player affair at various events, this commercial version will feature an up to eight-player tournament mode with online multiplayer.

See how intense this simple little brawler can get in Nidhogg's release announcement trailer below.

Watch on YouTube