I mean, the original point was to duel another player for the right to throw your body into the waiting maw of a giant worm. Some are turned off by the art, but I think it ultimately feeds into the overall style of the original game. Blood flows from corpses like colored paint being thrown upon walls and floors. The player characters, the eponymous nidhogg, and many of the stages feature an overgrowth of life to an almost cancerous degree.
It's a game of flesh, of characters who are represented as bulbous bags of meat and blood waiting to be pierced, slashed, stomped, and eventually, eaten. When I spoke with Messhof co-founder Mark Essen earlier this year, he revealed his desire to make more than just "a better version of Nidhogg", instead hoping for a "different version of Nidhogg." The art style, the work of artist Toby Dixon, is a major step in that direction.Ĭompared to the minimalist pixel art of the first game, Nidhogg 2's art is all about growth. Let's start with the art style, which is divisive to say the least. So how does one follow that up? Messhof's idea was to keep the core of the game intact, add some more to the package, and take the artstyle in a different direction. It was the kind of game you could load up and have a blast with friends, once they figured out the controls and mechanics. Nidhogg was a minimalist 1v1 fighting game, prizing the core aspects of dueling above all else. It was a game that sprung from Messhof thrown into the gaming convention circuit, where it found an audience that would sing its praises.