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When I first heard about 1348 Ex Voto, I used to be immediately intrigued. A medieval Italian setting, sword fights, a darkish and dramatic quest with a knight on the centre of it; and a woman knight at that? Count me in!
Review information
Platform reviewed: PC
Available on: PS5, PC
Release date: March 12, 2026
When the remainder of her hometown is massacred by unknown forces and Bianca, her closest companion and former family servant, is instantly kidnapped, it is as much as Aeta, armed together with her dedication and talent with a longsword, to come back to the rescue.
A real knight
I’m a sucker for a darkish story that follows a personality on a high-stakes quest, so the premise of Ex Voto had my consideration instantly from the prologue. It’s a traditional narrative about whether or not the tip can ever justifies the means, and Aeta’s unfailing resolve and heroism, in addition to her naivety, make for a compelling character amid a setting crammed with lawlessness.
The recreation consists of 9 comparatively quick chapters that happen throughout rocky landscapes, lush woodland, the ruins of historic Rome, and the villas of a medieval Italian countryside. I completed it in roughly seven hours, but it surely’s attainable to beat it inside one sitting in the event you do not die too typically or spend the additional time scouring each nook on the lookout for hidden treasures.
As childhood companions (and later urged to be lovers), Aeta, performed by Alby Baldwin, has an unwavering devotion to Jennifer English’s Bianca, so her vow to trace down and rescue her from her captors was a journey I used to be ready to fall in love with.
As the playable protagonist, I did like Aeta for probably the most half. Throughout her quest, she is compelled into encounters that check her religion, and also you witness how resilient she turns into in not simply monitoring down Bianca but in addition discovering these chargeable for all this destruction.
Heroes like Aeta, who’re outlined by their selflessness and pushed by a powerful ethical code, are a few of my favourite characters in fiction, particularly in tales with a girl within the lead position.
Aeta is formed by the chivalric tales she grew up with, which impressed her to change into a knight-errant within the first place, however as a consequence of how quick the sport is, there weren’t sufficient alternatives to dig deeper into her character past the vow she made to her god and devotion to Bianca, which felt like a missed alternative.
Additionally, Ex Voto suffers from an excessive amount of telling, and never sufficient displaying. The easy premise of the sport and Aeta’s arduous quest must be robust sufficient to face by itself, however her pointless commentary simply turns into irritating.
I do not usually thoughts when protagonists have an inner monologue, but it surely will get to some extent. In Ex Voto, as a substitute of merely letting the stunning linear environments inform the story, Aeta typically feedback on actually all the things she sees: whether or not it’s stating the plain, repeating her newest focal point, or the numerous occasions she proclaims her vow to save lots of Bianca.
The latter can also be one of many explanation why I wasn’t utterly offered on Aeta and Bianca’s story. Aside from the quick prologue and some different scenes I will not spoil, the closeness they share simply did not really feel actual sufficient to know onto. Aeta needs to save lots of Bianca; that is her principal objective, however the journey lacks the emotional depth that I anticipated.
Baldwin and English’s nice voice work does many of the heavy lifting in attempting to make their bond plausible, however their underdeveloped relationship could not make me to care too deeply. It’s a disgrace, as a result of these types of affection tales are a dime a dozen in video video games, and it wasn’t helped by the disjointed story beats, significantly mid-game.
Each chapter duties you with getting from one space to the following, on the path of Bianca and her captors, adopted by a short while skip that begins the continuing chapter. This is a brief, linear expertise, so there’s not a lot when it comes to exploration; you will primarily be stocking up on provisions, discovering trinkets, treasures, and sword components, or transferring packing containers or carts to beat obstacles. And taking down baddies, after all.
Without spoiling something, I’ll admit the ultimate act took me abruptly however, as a result of the exploration of Aeta and Bianca’s bond felt so underutilized inside the story, the climax rang hole.
Performance woes
Now let’s get the worst of it out of the way in which. I performed 1348 Ex Voto on PC and let’s simply say I used to be sorely dissatisfied within the optimization.
My PC is fitted with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti graphics card, an AMD Ryzen 7 5700X 8-core CPU, and 16GB of RAM, and with this mid-range construct, I can usually play some fairly demanding trendy video games. However, the small indieEx Voto struggled tremendously.
When at excessive settings at 1440p decision (although I attempted 4K too), locked at 60 frames per second (fps), the sport’s performance dropped to between 20 and 30fps and stuttering was prevalent, with the identical issues persisting even at medium settings.
After twiddling with settings for ages, I ultimately resorted to placing the sport in low settings and noticed an enormous increase in performance as much as 60fps, though the sport steadily noticed large dips right down to 30fps, particularly in areas that includes an awesome quantity of element on display, like in extremely detailed woodland or locations that includes atmospheric shadows.
Aeta and different characters additionally endure the identical destiny. With all low settings, the realism and emotional weight which might be meant to be translated by means of their fashions are misplaced, making them appear like puppets, and I might be mendacity if I did not say it put me off.
Best Bit
1348’s Ex Voto‘s strongest aspect is its sword-fighting fight system. With two longsword stances on supply, a difficult parry, and a beneficiant number of upgradable abilities, the fight feels probably the most fine-tuned out of all the things the sport has to supply.
It’s a bummer, as a result of the sport’s life like type and interesting, cinematic course have been one of many issues that drew me in within the first place. I used to be primarily compelled to sacrifice the beautiful visuals if I needed even a crumb of fine performance, and even then, it wasn’t all the time excellent.
While much less irritating, I did run into a number of annoying bugs, although they weren’t game-breaking sufficient to require me winding again my save. At one level early on, I encountered an terrible, but hilarious points the place a personality saved repeating his traces over and over throughout a prolonged cutscene. It was so distracting that I could not even take note of any of the dialogue, and it principally ruined the ambiance of all the scene.
Aside from this, and some different interplay bugs the place I could not choose up provisions and transfer a field correctly, the primary subject revolved across the performance, and I believe the sport ought to’ve been saved within the oven a bit of longer so Sedleo might easy out the cracks.
During the assessment interval, I wasn’t given the prospect to check out the PlayStation 5 model, so I’m actually curious if Ex Voto provides a extra secure expertise than PC.
Stick ’em with the sharp finish
Ex Voto‘s saving grace is its sword-fighting fight system. Your sole weapon is your longsword, which supplies you a one-handed and two-handed stance. The first lets Aeta assault sooner in broad strokes, however strikes deal barely much less injury, whereas the latter assaults slower, with a shorter vary, and offers barely extra injury.
One-on-one battles is unquestionably the sport’s strongest swimsuit; sword fights really feel trendy and rewarding, significantly if you’re in a position to repeatedly execute excellent parries and stagger an enemy by breaking their guard, leaving them open for a killing blow.
Aeta’s longsword may also be upgraded by discovering completely different components alongside your journey, every with its personal attributes that provide various preventing types. The recreation’s talent tree, which consists of 4 key classes and might be unlocked by discovering scrolls on this planet, additionally options further methods to improve your Health, Guard, and Food gauges (that are very important in longer battles) in addition to your two stances.
Trinkets are one other particular merchandise that, when geared up, will influence gameplay with distinctive results. Each trinket has a value, so you possibly can’t equip all of them, however they do make or break a combat.
You begin with the Toy Knight, a trinket that robotically makes use of all of the meals in your stock to stop dying, however yow will discover a handful extra, together with one that permits you to heal for double, which is useful within the latter a part of the sport if you’re up in opposition to quite a few enemies directly.
If you do not do a ok job of gathering provisions, you might get soft-locked into fights in the event you die
Speaking of, Ex Voto has number of foes, together with three principal bosses, throughout its 9 chapters, all with their very own weapon sorts and assault patterns that you’re going to must learn to counter by parrying and spending scrolls on the appropriate abilities.
There are factors in fight the place you’re overwhelmed by a number of enemies directly, and, within the late recreation, further foes spawn out of nowhere to hitch the combat making sustaining your gauges an excellent greater problem.
These five-on-one (even generally extra) fights might generally really feel finicky because of the recreation’s lock-on mechanic, particularly if you end up pinned in shut quarters. If you do not do a ok job of gathering provisions, you might get soft-locked into fights if you die due to the autosave operate.
While I get pleasure from fight loads, there isn’t a energy scaling within the recreation so by the point I reached the ultimate boss combat, I’d change into so accustomed to the straightforward mechanics that I used to be in a position to beat them simply.
Just because it acquired in the way in which of with the ability to benefit from the visuals, the sport’s performance additionally impacts gameplay. Not to the extent the place it’s unplayable, however stutters and small framerate dips are extra noticeable within the aforementioned areas when a lot is going on on display.
Should you play 1348 Ex Voto?
Play it if…
Don’t play it if…
Accessibility options
1348 Ex Voto suffers from an absence of accessibility choices, solely providing basic graphics settings for movement blur and subtitles, and a number of language choices. There are additionally no choices to customise your keybinds on PC, which was one thing I struggled with.
How I reviewed 1348 Ex Voto
I spent roughly eight hours taking part in 1348 Ex Voto on my gaming PC with my Logitech G G715 wi-fi gaming keyboard and Logitech G703 wireless gaming mouse, finishing the primary storyline. I used a Gigabyte M32U gaming monitor, and used my Sony WH-CH520 wi-fi headphones for audio.
The recreation would not supply any further performance modes to check out, however I in contrast the sport’s visuals and performance to different medieval motion video games, like Kingdom Come: Deliverance.
First reviewed March 2026
