Snowpeak Studio’s Blood Ancestors is a free-to-play, competitive, team-based, first-person melee game. The game sees players choosing between three different factions aimed at attempting to reclaim an ancient relic to take control of the cosmic energies to shape the fate of world, whether it be to save it or usher in its impending destruction.

There are six character types for each of the three factions, and a total of 18 different classes to choose from. The game is set during a medieval fantasy world, where you’ll utilize a wide range of different medieval weapons against your opponents, ranging from swords and maces, to axes and hammers.

It reminds me a little bit of Mirage: Arcane Warfare. You can see what the gameplay is like with the trailer below.

The game sees 4-vs-4 matches taking place across various arenas while attempting to capture the relics.

The open alpha is free for now but the game won’t stay free forever. In fact, when Blood Ancestors releases later this year as a full version it will be $19.95.

Right now there’s a lot of mixed feedback on the game, with some people stating that even as a free alpha it’s not worth the download because there are still lots of bugs and glitches where players are forced under the map, textures not loading properly, the game not playing well with anti-virus software, and frequent match disconnections taking place in the online multiplayer maps.

However, given that this is an open alpha, we can likely expect the the technical issues will be addressed in future patches.

On the other side of the fence, some players like it because it’s like a first-person MOBA, and they enjoy the class dynamics and melee-focused combat because it’s skill based, almost like Chivalry: Medieval Warfare or War of the Roses.

You can check out the free alpha of Blood Ancestors if you want by visiting the Steam store page. Alternatively you can wait until all the issues get ironed out and check out the full version when it goes live later this year.