Xiphos is a squad-based medieval fantasy RPG for PC that emphasizes open-ended sandbox gameplay in a fractured world of ruined kingdoms and warring factions. Players start as ordinary individuals without any predetermined destiny or central narrative to follow, and they shape their own path through survival, recruitment, and decision-making in a setting marked by famine, slavery, ancient races, and forgotten places.
Gameplay
The core loop revolves around managing a group of characters who gain experience and skills over time. Players recruit companions from various backgrounds and assign them roles such as warriors, craftsmen, farmers, medics, or traders to support the squad's needs. Exploration takes characters across settlements, overgrown farmlands, ancient forests, shattered battlefields, mountain kingdoms, wastelands, and ruins where entire civilizations once stood.
Survival requires active management of resources. Characters mine ore, farm crops, haul water, craft equipment, trade goods between locations, scavenge battlefields, or engage in riskier activities like theft or bounty hunting. Settlements can be purchased or established from scratch, with buildings for farms, workshops, storage, and defenses that support ongoing production chains. Factions operate independently, controlling territory, patrolling roads, raiding enemies, and responding to events without waiting for player involvement.
Combat carries real risks even in victory. Individual limbs can suffer wounds, leading to blood loss, trauma, reduced mobility, unconsciousness, or death. Defeat may result in capture, enslavement, separation of the squad, or being left behind, turning setbacks into new story branches rather than immediate ends. The world maintains consistent danger levels regardless of player progress, so early travel into hostile areas demands caution or retreat.
Game Modes
Xiphos operates as a single continuous sandbox experience without separate named modes or structured campaigns. All activity occurs in one persistent world where players define their objectives, whether traveling alone, building a large squad, joining or opposing factions, establishing a base, or focusing on trade and crafting. Progression comes through character development, settlement growth, and accumulated consequences rather than level-based gates or scripted sequences.
World and Factions
The setting exists centuries after the collapse of an older civilization, leaving human kingdoms in conflict over remnants, dwarven holds beneath mountains, elven enclaves, orc clans on frontiers, and various threats including slavers, cults, undead, raiders, and beasts. Factions maintain their own agendas, defending holdings, trading, or fighting among themselves, which creates opportunities for players to align, betray, exploit, or avoid involvement entirely. Ordinary inhabitants follow routines such as guarding, trading, farming, or traveling, contributing to a sense that the world functions independently of the player.
Is It Worth Playing?
Xiphos suits players who prefer unguided freedom in a medieval fantasy RPG over linear stories or heroic roles. The emphasis on squad management, consequence-driven survival, and economic systems rewards those comfortable with managing injuries, resource scarcity, and open choices in a single-player sandbox. Its approach to failure as a potential starting point for new directions and its consistent world rules appeal to fans of emergent gameplay in PC titles focused on medieval settings and squad tactics. Availability on PC makes it accessible for those seeking this style of open-ended experience.
