As soon as I saw the key art for 1348 Ex Voto, I knew I had to play some. A female warrior knight with authentically awesome (so, totally crap) bowl cut hairdo, wielding a huge longsword, and bedecked in suitably religious ornamentation and vibes, is definitely my jam. And after playing the new free demo of 1348 Ex Voto, despite some concerns, I’m now praying that developer Sedleo can follow through and deliver a great full game.
You play as Aeta, a young female knight errant in Medieval Italy. You’ve been trained by your noble father and, as the prologue to Ex Voto begins, you love nothing more than practicing with the sword to do your knightly duty. The only thing you may love more is your closest companion, Bianca, who, of course, is voiced by Jennifer English (yes, you simply can’t escape her melodic tones these days).
Burn baby burn
Then disaster strikes. Your hometown is attacked and, after you’ve run through a very standard “this is how to move and run” tutorial, you’re thrust into the medieval fray. Sword drawn, camera pulled in closely behind you and to the right, you’re then invited to hack-and-slash through a series of brutal bandits who are killing local civilians, pillaging their belongings, and burning down their homes.
In the demo, you have two stances available (one-handed and two-handed), as well as your typical light and heavy attacks. Naturally you can also block and dodge. I never got the chance to do any timed perfect parrying, but I’ll eat my chaperon if the full game doesn’t have a learned perfect counter mechanic. After all, there is a timed true strike mechanic whereby pressing the attack button again at the time of an attack’s impact helps chain moves together.
The bandits come swinging at Aeta with a variety of weapons, and you respond by showing them the error of their ways by slicing and dicing with your longsword. The movements of Aeta and her enemies have been motion captured by Historical European Martial Arts (HEMA) experts meaning that, just like Aeta’s terrible hairdo, the combat is very historically accurate and authentic. While you get no option to explore it in the demo, the game does seem to have a weapon modification system, too, with different parts of Aeta’s longsword changeable (no doubt when you find new hilts/crossguards/blades etc.
Metal clangs upon metal, sparks fly, and blood spews forth, as Aeta’s quest to find Bianca and stop the slaughter picks up pace. Encounters are relatively rare, with Aeta slowly progressing from fighting one bandit to multiple foes, and onto larger packs. Combat is quite slow and considered overall, so more like Silent Hill f than, say, Nioh 3 or Elden Ring, with Aeta going one-on-one with enemies in a carefully considered dance of death. Judging the enemy’s weapon and attack patterns remains key, though, for successfully staying vertical.
Treats and treasure
What’s notable about the ravaged medieval Italian world of 1348 Ex Voto’s is that it is rather empty. There is no collectible hidden around every corner, or a bunch of random NPCs ready to talk your ear off with lore waffle. Leaning once more into the Silent Hill vibes, this is a largely empty world and one where Aeta is railroaded through the main path she is intended to hack her way down. It appears that the game’s devs want to lean into the cinematic action and vengeance story rather than any pretense of an open world, or even a hub world.
That said, there are items to find and pick up, including food to help replenish Aeta’s limited healthbar hearts (you start with just five), skill books to expand your combat moveset, and trinkets and treasures that give you small boons. During my time with Aeta I picked up two scrolls that helped me increase my health bar and block meter, as well as a handful of food items that handily appeared on some ransacked carts just before Aeta had to fight a bunch of bandits in a courtyard.
But if you ask me, the real treasure in 1348 Ex Voto is found in the game’s stunningly detailed and authentic-looking medieval Italian environments and structures. From the interiors of burning shops and storerooms, through to towering, sun-dappled churches, and onto intimidating castles with fluttering flags, 14th-century Italy has never looked better in games. There’s something a little like A Plague Tale: Requiem about the look of the Ex Voto, which has been built in Unreal Engine 5, with stones and shining armour illuminated wonderfully.
The flame effects, be they on engulfed buildings or the smouldering pyres where poor medieval peasants have been burnt en masse, are very atmospheric and really add a bit of life to a beautiful but rather dead and empty world.
Casualty of war
Speaking of a dead world. It’s not all sweet-smelling medieval roses, though, from my time with the 1348 Ex Voto demo. As much as I found the combat, visuals and religious zealot vengeance vibes exciting, there’s no doubting that right now (and apparently mere months from a full release) the game felt really rather rough around the edges.
One time, when navigating a burning building, I fell off a beam and got stuck in a never-ending fall loop, something that forced a restart. On another occasion, after having run the game perfectly in my previous session, it just kept crashing to desktop when trying to load a save. After tinkering around with settings for 10 minutes, including a full PC restart, I managed to coax it back to life by dropping down to a low-resolution windowed mode. I could then immediately take the game back to full-screen 4K and play on. Odd. The game’s menu system is weirdly unresponsive, too, and at times I struggled to decrease values of things. Even odder.
Then there is the fact that Aeta, as good as she looks in combat, is a dull, lifeless knight doll when left to her own devices. The blank expression and rigid posture feel inorganic in the organic, human world of Ex Voto, and it kept breaking my immersion. Better idle animations and more characterful facial expressions, specifically out of cutscenes, would go a long way to maintaining immersion. Aeta also handles like an absolute tank. And not in a way that communicates the weight of her armour, but more in the way that you can struggle to turn her around in tight spaces. Nimble and agile she is not. She handles like a Space Marine in Terminator armour.
Then there are a few things that didn’t suit my taste. One choice, for example, is that as soon as an enemy comes into combat range, their health bar (bright white) appears directly under them. You can see some of those garish, immersion-breaking bars in the nearby screenshots. I would have preferred the game wait for combat to start before showing them, moved them to the top or bottom of the screen, or just gone full Kingdom Come: Deliverance II and removed them altogether. The world of Ex Voto looks so good, and I love the fantasy of playing as a medieval knight and inhabiting a 14th-century world so much, that these aesthetically jarring video game life bars take something away from the experience.
A religious experience
Despite these concerns, though, I’ve come away from playing 1348 Ex Voto praying that the devs can deliver a truly heavenly gaming experience when the full game releases on 12 March, 2026. Despite its rough edges and room for improvement, I like how committed the devs seem to be in telling a story in an authentic medieval environment, with authentic clothes, combat and—most excitingly—thought processes and belief structures. Maybe the full game won’t follow through to the level I hope it will, but I’ve been massively buoyed by seeing Aeta praying to her god, swearing on her family’s honour, and speaking by and large without modern affectations.
I also appreciate a game that feels like it just wants to tell its story and do so in a cinematic, action-oriented way. From what I’ve played, there is no open world, no endless collectables, and no meaningless side-quests. There’s just a good old-fashioned cinematic action romp, and one that will no doubt ring in at under 20 hours for completion, too. Heavenly!
If Sedleo can continue to rapidly polish 1348 Ex Voto to iron out its shortcomings, as well as work on it post-launch, then I already feel like this could be one of 2026’s most memorable surprises. So, to Sedleo I say, Benedictio Dei sit super te: May the blessing of God be upon you.