Blades For Hire — Demo Out Now! Build your guild, take on contracts, and survive
Forget about saving the world — you're not a hero, you're a contractor. Build your guild, take on contracts, and survive
Greetings, mercenaries!
We’re excited to announce that the free demo of our dark tactical RPG Blades for Hire is available now on Steam — a game where loyalty has a price, and that price is gold.
And starting tomorrow, Blades for Hire will join the Steam Next Fest: June 2025 Edition festival — stay tuned for updates, livestreams, and exclusive content on our Steam page!
Blades for Hire is a tactical RPG that doesn’t care about your morals.
In a world no longer worth saving, you command a guild of mercenaries just trying to make a profit from what’s left. And today, you get a first look — the free demo is available to everyone.
You're not the hero. You're the boss.
You don’t play a chosen one. You manage a struggling mercenary guild in a rotting fantasy world. Your crew? A mix of renegades, idealists, thieves, and cynics who follow you not out of loyalty — but because you pay them. On time. Or else.
No grand quest. Just dirty work.
There’s no prophecy or world-saving arc. Instead, you’ll face contracts filled with extortion, blackmail, massacres, and ruthless decisions. Your actions shape your reputation and unlock (or block) new opportunities. The Church may despise you — but the criminal underworld might welcome you with open arms.
What to expect in the demo:
• First missions and early in-game choices
• Tactical combat with indirect control
• Guild economy and basic management
• A glimpse into the world and its brutal rules
What to expect in the full version:
— 150+ contracts and missions: From escorts and ambushes to betrayal, extortion, and moral gray areas.
— Tactical combat with indirect control: Set strategies and priorities — your mercs act on their own (and not always how you’d like).
— Deep mercenary relationship system: Every character is unique, with values, limits, and personalities. Bonds impact efficiency, loyalty, and story outcomes.
— Guild economy system: Salaries, equipment, hiring and firing, bribes, donations — everything has a cost.
— Choices that shape the world and your reputation: Your actions affect which factions you can work with — the Church, criminals, nobles, or outcasts. Your path determines your contracts.
— No good or evil. Just consequences: This is not a game of “right” decisions — it's about what's necessary, what's profitable, or just the least awful option.
— High replayability: Every run is different thanks to branching paths, dynamic events, and your crew’s unpredictable nature.
Wishlist, follow, and remember — there are no heroes here. Just contracts, cold steel, and the price you’re willing to pay.
Join our Discord server to ask the developers directly and share feedback with the community.
King's Route Content Expansion + New Girl and Patch 2.07
Hello guys! I'm happy to inform you that the game has been updated to the version 2.07.
It is one of biggest patches we've done: it totally reworks the king's route and converts it into a full scale kingdom management simulator that allows you to personally control pretty much every aspect of life of the realm under your control. Create new laws, collect taxes, establish your authority, capture and defend territories, build and supply armies - and wage military campaigns both within England and abroad. The new version of the king's route adds so much possibilities that it is now basically a game within a game.
On top of that this update also introduces a new love interest and properly concludes Alyssa's storyline with several possible outcomes that will see her both get everything that she ever desired and receive the ultimate punishment for what she has done.
Changelog: 1. Totally reworked the king's route into a 4-chapter long kingdom management simulator with several possible endings. 2. Added a new love interst. 3. Added 13 new achievements. 4. Reworked the stats of several high-tier armor pieces (i.e. Nobleman's armor etc. - they now have considerably higher torso cover). 5. Added blackjack and lockpicks to Raoul of Aragon's dropped loot. 6. Increased HP recover from Red stone ring to 2. 7. Lowered the chance to damage armor on a reflected strike. 8. Fixed a bunch of bugs and localization issues.
With this patch done, I will begin the work on the 4th DLC - it should be officially announced in June. Grace and Glory route expansion is still planned but will most likely take place either after the 4th DLC or together with it (unlikely but might happen).
The 4th DLC itself will introduce an Italian campaign, a yet another expansion to the combat system with new active abilities for trinkets and weapon-swapping for enemies and much more.
As always - big thanks to everyone who reports the bugs and helps me fix them - your cooperation is greatly appreciated. Sorry to everybody who's been affected by the technical issues. If you need any help - don't be afraid to reach out to me directly either here or on Discord and I will try to help you if I can.
Cheers!
1917 Studios
Decadent Heir — Your Story in a World of Change. Coming Soon!
Greetings!
We are proud to present Decadent Heir — a narrative RPG where politics, betrayal, and luxury intertwine in a deadly dance of ambition.
The late 19th century. You are born into a noble family and face the cruelty and injustice of the era from your very first days. What will your fate be? Will you become a loyal servant of the empire, a revolutionary, or forge your own unique path?
In Decadent Heir, you will experience a deep interactive story where every decision shapes your character’s life:
📜 Live a dramatic life — from birth to adulthood.
🎓 Choose your education and career — become an officer, an official, a politician, or a revolutionary
⚔️ Face war and intrigue — the Russo-Japanese War, World War I, conspiracies, and assassination attempts.
💔 Build relationships with family, loved ones, and more — experience difficult choices and defining moments.
Where will your character stand when the old era collapses? The choice is yours.
Hello guys! I'm happy to inform you that the game has been updated to the version 2.05.
French campaign content update changelog: 1. Added 6 new quests. 2. Added 3 new bosses. 3. Added a bunch of new events, shops and interactions. 4. Reworked certain fights (also De Roche's men will now assist you more frequently in various fights). 5. Added several new ways to hire allies in different chapters.
Patch changelog: 1. Fixed an inconsistency with poisoned bolts sometimes do not properly applying their toxicity level. 2. Added new time limits to the Hoggard quest. 3. For NPC characters injury resistance from vitality is now limited by 10 which will make injuring bosses with massive HP pools a bit easier (although still more difficult than before). 4. Fixed several errors with DIY crafts. 5. 'Prepare for Battle' screen now also has a squad control menu that allows to perform certain actions. 6. Added new ally type - 'renegade knights'. They work the same as impoverished knights but will not get angry at the player for low virtue. 7. Weapons' durability loss in Prestige mode now happens quicker. 8. Added visual price update for items when lucky coin trinket is equipped. 9. Fixed a ton of localization errors. 10. Fixed an issue with ally models not updating after their shield has been destroyed. 11. Added 2 new achievements.
With this patch done, my next task will be to create a similar update but for King's route and Grace & Glory campaign. Originally I wanted to do them as two separate patches but then decided to stitch them both into one in order to save time. I expect the update to be done by the mid-late March. After that I will begin working on the fourth DLC (Italian campaign, Emma expansion, unpopular endings rework) which most likely will be the last one.
For a while I also had an idea of doing some kind of "Stories from Cambrai" DLC that would significatly expand the first half of the game (Cambrai arc) in order to make it less linear and introduce various new questlines, paths and probably even characters - but honestly I'm not 100% sure whether that idea is worth basing a whole DLC around it.
As always - big thanks to everyone who reports the bugs and helps me fix them - your cooperation is greatly appreciated. Sorry to everybody who's been affected by the technical issues. If you need any help - don't be afraid to reach out to me directly either here or on Discord and I will try to help you if I can.
Cheers!
1917 Studios
Technical patch 2.03
Hello guys! I'm happy to inform you that the game has been updated to the version 2.03. This is a technical update that is aimed primarily at fixing bugs and dealing with some balancing issues.
Changelog: 1. Fixed the buggy interaction with the wandring knight\crusader when they attempt to join your party. 2. Fixed the issue with Virtue not falling lower than -10 (now it should go down to -200). 3. Fixed a rare bug in the Maidstone tavern brawler fights where the enemies sometimes became invisible. 4. Lowered the stats of assassins in Rouen (kept them as they are in Prestige mode though). This even will be further updated in the future content patches. 5. Fixed the issues with Knights Last Hope and Justice Sword incorrectly applying bonus damage from player's virtue. 6. Fixed the broken travelling cloak DIY craft. 7. Ending 26 should now correctly trigger Eva's marriage achievement for those who have the first DLC. 8. Fixed a lot of issues with Burgundian polehammer's incorrect moveset, missing tooltips etc. 9. Maces' Batter and Overhead strike attacks now ignore a percentage of target's armor equal to the third of attacker's strength. Smite attack also ignores armor but equal to the half of attacker's strength. Maces now longer have an increased injury chance. 10. Fixed the issue with 'Back' button in Character tab in the Kingdom fo London section sometimes breaking the game. 11. Fixed the issue with the 'lifetime_killed_enemies' error message popping up for some players. 12. Fixed the issue with the player still being able to treat injuries for free in the first chapter of the French campaign. 13. Updated the formula for enemies' armor bypass calculation which should result in player's armor working more reliably and blocking more attacks. 14. Fixed a bunch of issues with inconsistent visual numbers for prices with the Haggler talent and economic zones enabled. 15. Fixed the bug with the wolf's teeth necklace prolonging bleeds by 9 turns instead of 0. 16. Battle blessings no longer reset after the first combat encounter and instead only disappear when the player is back in camp. 17. Lowered the threshold for low virtue punishment for the Man of God civic talent. 18. Fixed the issue that allowed the player to keep assembling forces in Windsor even after the earl relieved him of command. 19. Reworked Parrying dagger trinket. It now provides guaranteed evasion charges based on players' coordination. 20. Attempted for fix the issue with Wallace's claymore unlock not working for some players. 21. Added automatic enemy model update in case of accidental shield drop injury triggering. 22. Fixed the issue with enemies who were not supposed to have poison shield on spawning with it anyway. 23. Updated injury application mechanic in camp. Now there should no longer be situations where two events that apply penalties for untreated injuries trigger simultaneously one after another. Same with toxicity penalty for searching too many bodies - the penalty-applying even should only trigger right after it if there's no more time left in chapter. Otherwise it should automatically be postponed, giving the player a chance to heal themselves. 24. Fixed the issue with the wanted poster losing its value due to new economic zones mechanic. Now it should always sell for full price. 25. Community-made characters will now start with level 5 and should level up on par with other recruitable characters. Their equipment, however, will not update automatically. 26. Fixed a lot of other smaller issues and incorrect interactions. *Keep in mind that some of the item\mechanics changes will take effect at the start of a new playthrough
What's next?
As previously promised, my next goal is to release a couple of content updates for the Threads of Destiny DLC that will make its scope even bigger. Most likely there will be three updates in total, each dedicated to its own story branch. The first update should be arriving sometime around the end of January.
As always - big thanks to everyone who reports the bugs and helps me fix them - your cooperation is greatly appreciated. Sorry to everybody who's been affected by the technical issues. If you need any help - don't be afraid to reach out to me directly either here or on Discord and I will try to help you if I can.
Cheers!
1917 Studios
Bugfixing patch 2.02b and the Roadmap
Hello guys! I'm happy to inform you that the game has been updated to the version 2.02b.
Changelog: 1. Fixed the issue with Numbing Remedy being unavailable for use from the pouch menu in battle and also causing a glitch when used out of battle. 2. Fixed a bug with stats loss\randomization from the lucky dice. 3. Fixed the issue with the recruitable hunter in Rouen having increasingly negative stats (I'm not 100% sure that the issue is totally resolved - let me know if it continues to happen). 4. Fixed several issues for game freezes in battle and in shop. 5. Expanded the list of DIY crafts. 6. Fixed the issue with Acrobat, Woodsman and Haggler civic talents sometimes being invisible during random character creation. 7. Fixed a bunch of smaller issues. glitches and incorrect interactions.
With this patch out of the way and the game being in a pretty stable state (of course I'm going to jinx it) I intend to take a couple of weeks off. During that time I will still monitor the situation and, if something really urgent happens, will come up with new hotfixes. Once my short break ends I plan to being the work on creating several free content updates that will expand the third DLC - primarily Grace and Glory campaign and the King's route. If everything works out, the first update should arrive around the end of January.
Once those updates are done I plan to start the work on the promised Italian campaign which should arrive (together with the Outremer\Emma's expansion) as its own DLC - probably the last one I will do for Heads Will Roll.
These are my plans. Obviously, nothing I wrote here is set in stone and anything is subject to change. However I'm pretty sure that this will more or less be the way that things will happen in.
As always - big thanks to everyone who reports the bugs and helps me fix them - your cooperation is greatly appreciated. Sorry to everybody who's been affected by the technical issues. Unfortunately it is what it is - the game is absolutely huge and maintaining its technical state alone is very hard. If you need any help - don't be afraid to reach out to me directly either here or on Discord and I will try to help you if I can.
Happy New Year everybody and Merry Christmas!
1917 Studios
Bugfixing patch 2.02 is out now!
Hello guys! I'm happy to inform you that the game has been updated to the version 2.02.
Changelog: 1. Fixed the issue that made allies lose maximum HP after levelling up instead of gaining it. 2. Fixed several issues that led to game freezing and crashing in combat (infinite loop errors). 3. Fixed several visual issues (incorrect placement for Charles of Navarre model in some dialogues and the absence of attack animation for knight's warhammer). 4. Fixed the issue with ending 24's achievement being unavailable. 5. Fixed the issue with Cecilia not accepting Knight's Last Hope sword for her quest. 6. Fixed a bunch of issues with allies' help in combat - now receiving items from them should not cause any more bugs or glitches. 7. Allowed the player to continue gathering militia through sergeant even after the Windsor has been captured. 8. Updated both localizations. 9. Fixed a bunch of other small issues and incorrect interactions.
I will continue to work on fixing the bugs. If you encounter any - please let me know in the Steam community section or on our Discord. My condolences to everyone who's been affected by technical issues.
Thank you all for playing!
Cheers! 1917 Studios
Bugfixing patch 2.01 is out now!
Hello guys! I'm happy to inform you that the game has been updated to the version 2.01 which should fix a bunch of existing issues, glitches and critical errors.
List of fixed issues: 1. Removed virtue bonuses from kills that mistakingly were added into some of the French campaign fights. Added virtue bonues from kills to the Eva's quest in the first chapter of the French campaign. 2. Added scaling gold rewards for kills. The base amount of money that you receive from killed enemies will now depend on their class and level with militiamen and bandits yielding the fewest amount and knights yielding the largest. 3. Added an increased gold reward from kills for mercenary's companion shortsword. 4. Fixed an issue with fletcher's tools not counting properly in the DIY crafts. Expended DIY crafts list with various additional crossbow-related crafts. The list is planned to be further incrased with the coming patches. 5. Fixed another problem that happened during Paris riots event and made the game think that you have no weapon despite you possibly having even several. 6. Fixed several smaller issues and updated both Russian and English localization.
I will continue to work on fixing the bugs. If you encounter any - please let me know in the Steam community section or on our Discord. My condolences to everyone who's been affected by technical issues.
Thank you all for playing!
Cheers! 1917 Studios
Bugfixing patch 2.0f is out now!
Hello guys! I'm happy to inform you that the game has been updated to the version 2.0f which should fix a bunch of existing issues, glitches and critical errors.
List of fixed issues: 1. Fixed routier camp in Navarre becoming unavailable after completing De Roche's quest about poisoning the wells. 2. Fixed an issue with one of Eva's backgrounds missing. 3. Reworked interactions for De Roche's Ratcatcher quest. Now he should tell you what precisely your squad member is missing in order to be accepted for the quest. 4. Fixed a couple of additional issues with Rouen's baclsmith (his dialogue menu sometimes sending you to another character's dialogue and his orders being buggy and uninteractable. 5. Fixed an issue with Windsor sometimes still being on the map in York chapter. 6. Fixed an issue with strong homebrew poison's craft causing an error message. 7. Fixed an issue with one of the Rennes' bosses Rallying cry ability causing error messages to pop up. 8. Fixed wanted poster not working properly in the first chapter of French campaign. 9. Fixed an issue with receiving bolts from ally in battle breaking your pouch and causing phantom items to appear.
I will continue to work on fixing the bugs. If you encounter any - please let me know in the Steam community section or on our Discord. My condolences to everyone who's been affected by technical issues.
Thank you all for playing!
Cheers! 1917 Studios
Bugfixing patch 2.0e is out now!
Hello guys! I'm happy to inform you that the game has been updated to the version 2.0e which should fix a bunch of existing issues, glitches and critical errors.
List of fixed issues: 1. Fixed a bunch of issues with enemies skipping their turns in combat. 2. Fixed an issue with a mssing image for stamina recovery battle blessing. 3. Fixed an issue with player's model when two handed scimitar was equipped. 4. Fixed an issue with numbing remedy's recipe being incorrect (will take effect after campaign restart). 5. Fixed an issue with uninteractable surcoat item in Navrre. 6. Fixed an issue with recruitment sometimes being unavailable during the Kingdom of London section. 7. Prison break section in French campaign now also includes luck, agility and coordination checks. The first enemies you kill should always spawn at least one weapon. After defeating them you will also be able to explore the prison and acquire additional loot before fighting you way out. 8. Fixed several small glitches with lucky dice. 9. Fixed another bug that happened when attempting to complete the baclksmith quest in Rouen. 12. Fixed another reason that might force the player into an infinite gauntlet of bandits fights in Roeun. 13. Fixed an issue that broke the player visual model and made the shield and left hand models to disapper after the weapon has been broken. 14. Fixed an issue with the Scottish knight duel in Kingdom of London that made him take infinite turns. 15. Fixed an issue with missing backgrounds in several new quests. 16. Fixed a bunch of various smaller issues.
I will continue to work on fixing the bugs. If you encounter any - please let me know in the Steam community section or on our Discord. My condolences to everyone who's been affected by technical issues.
