Pretty landscapes can't save hamfisted combat
By Paul Hunter
Not many studios would pick a setting like the Black Death as the backdrop for their debut game, but Sedleo did. The 15-person Italian indie team, with Dear Villagers publishing, dropped 1348 Ex Voto into 14th century plague-ravaged Italy and built a third-person action adventure around it. Ex voto is Latin for "according to a vow," and what that vow costs to keep is what this whole game is really about.
It runs 6-8 hours and costs a reasonable $25, and it's built in Unreal Engine 5. I went in curious, but let's dig deeper. Is 1348 Ex Voto the medieval vow worth keeping? Let's find out!
The brigands end all of that, though.
Armed bandits who had been tearing through plague-weakened towns across Italy had finally hit their settlement. Church bells ring, we see smoke rise from afar, and then discover that Bianca is taken. Aeta makes her vow immediately: "Bianca, you are all that is left to me… I shall save you. This, I vow."
Three acts across medieval Italy follow. Playing as Aeta you push through brigands, corrupt lords, heretics and pious church leaders. She gets mistaken for a boy throughout, and the story uses these moments to dig into what women in 14th century Italy actually had to deal with just to have a voice. It's one of the more interesting angles the game takes. The romantic undertones between Aeta and Bianca are there, too, though they get pushed aside toward the end with no real explanation.
While the intro is strong, the story unfortunately stumbles from there. Classism and systemic injustice soon take over the narrative, and though the themes are reflective of the time, the actual execution is clumsy with poorly written antagonists and too many cliched one-liners. The move away from the tight personal focus of the first act leads to a broader, but less compelling narrative, and the finale doesn't deliver the payoff the opening sets up.
All considered, 1348 Ex Voto starts with a strong story foundation but struggles to build on it, leaving you with a first act that hooks you in and a second half that disappoints.
Food scattered across levels fills a meter and restores one of your hearts (your health) per food block you consume. Consuming food is instantaneous so it's easy to refill your health during boss fights, but there's also the Toy Knight trinket you start with and it auto-consumes your food to save you from death. It bailed me out more times than I'd like to admit.
Combat is the other big focus in this game, and it's where things start to fall apart.
It focuses on two combat stances that have their own pros and cons. The one-handed stance is quick with a wide attack range and relies on dodging for defense. Two-handed is slower and hits harder, but automatically deflects incoming attacks at the cost of your guard gauge. Every fight follows the same loop of wearing down the white guard gauge above an enemy's head to stagger them, then deal heavy damage in that window.
It's a simple system, but it's a shame then that the lock-on system undermines so much of it. The camera frequently snaps to the wrong enemy mid-combo without warning, reseting your attack chain, which lets enemy stagger bars fully recover. I had a sequence against two enemies where the lock-on cycled between them so erratically I gave up trying to chain attacks entirely and just waited for one-off openings to strike.
The lack of enemy variety doesn't help, with the game only having around three enemy types that repeat ad nauseam. It tries to mask this by giving enemies different palette swaps, but it's obvious they're the same foes with the exact same attack patterns. Boss encounters are even more frustrating since they rapidly regenerate their stagger meters, and they're huge health sponges, plus they have a second phase that extends their combos to a ridiculous degree.
On the bright side, Sedleo collaborated with industry experts in Historical European Martial Arts (HEMA) for the combat motion capture, and it results in realistic stances and strikes that bring battles to life.
All considered, exploration had some highlights, but be warned that the combat wears you down well before the credits roll.
Character models are where it gets iffy. A lot of NPCs have a yellowish, sickly complexion that the plague setting might explain, but it looks uneven regardless of intent. Facial animations are stronger in cutscenes than in real-time gameplay, too, and the difference is noticeable when you see enemy voices not matching their lip movements.
Jennifer English, who Baldur's Gate 3 fans will recognise immediately as Shadowheart, is excellent as Bianca. Meanwhile, London-based actor Alby Baldwin does the voice and motion capture for Aeta and it is also very good. Genuinely their performances are the best part of the entire package, and if the rest of the game matched their highs, we'd be having a very different conversation.
The audio mix has issues though. Sound balance is off in certain sequences, and it pulls you out of the experience at the wrong moments. For some reason during some boss fights the audio volume would suddenly lower, then spike back up the moment the sequence ended. Then there's the 30fps cap on PS5, no 60fps option anywhere, and that goes for PS5 Pro, which I played on. For a 2026 Unreal Engine 5 game, that's a bit difficult to defend.
Taken as a whole, the environments and voice performances are easy to appreciate, but the character model inconsistencies, audio mix issues, and 30fps PS5 lock are hard to overlook.
Final Score: 5.5/10 - Mediocre
Developer: Sedleo
Publisher: Dear Villagers
Genre: Action Adventure
Modes: Single-player
A key was provided by the publisher.
By Paul Hunter
Not many studios would pick a setting like the Black Death as the backdrop for their debut game, but Sedleo did. The 15-person Italian indie team, with Dear Villagers publishing, dropped 1348 Ex Voto into 14th century plague-ravaged Italy and built a third-person action adventure around it. Ex voto is Latin for "according to a vow," and what that vow costs to keep is what this whole game is really about.
It runs 6-8 hours and costs a reasonable $25, and it's built in Unreal Engine 5. I went in curious, but let's dig deeper. Is 1348 Ex Voto the medieval vow worth keeping? Let's find out!
Story and Narrative
Before everything falls apart, Bianca and Aeta start the adventure with a heated sparring contest. We learn that Bianca is a postulant, on her way to life in a convent. Aeta is noble-born, shaped by a father who stood firm on respect and a mother who gave her permission to be herself, so she pursued her dream of becoming a knight. There's also a hint of chemistry between them, which is interesting given that Bianca is a commoner serving at Aeta's family castle, yet the distance between their social worlds never came between them.The brigands end all of that, though.
Armed bandits who had been tearing through plague-weakened towns across Italy had finally hit their settlement. Church bells ring, we see smoke rise from afar, and then discover that Bianca is taken. Aeta makes her vow immediately: "Bianca, you are all that is left to me… I shall save you. This, I vow."
Three acts across medieval Italy follow. Playing as Aeta you push through brigands, corrupt lords, heretics and pious church leaders. She gets mistaken for a boy throughout, and the story uses these moments to dig into what women in 14th century Italy actually had to deal with just to have a voice. It's one of the more interesting angles the game takes. The romantic undertones between Aeta and Bianca are there, too, though they get pushed aside toward the end with no real explanation.
While the intro is strong, the story unfortunately stumbles from there. Classism and systemic injustice soon take over the narrative, and though the themes are reflective of the time, the actual execution is clumsy with poorly written antagonists and too many cliched one-liners. The move away from the tight personal focus of the first act leads to a broader, but less compelling narrative, and the finale doesn't deliver the payoff the opening sets up.
All considered, 1348 Ex Voto starts with a strong story foundation but struggles to build on it, leaving you with a first act that hooks you in and a second half that disappoints.
Gameplay and Mechanics
Roughly half of your time in 1348 Ex Voto will be spent exploring, and this part I found moderately enjoyable. The levels are linear but built with enough hidden paths and tucked-away spots that going off the obvious route feels worthwhile. You'll find paper scrolls that function as skill points spent across four upgrade categories. There's also collectible sword components like blades, grips and pommels that add passive upgrades to Aeta's two-handed and one-handed longsword stances, and trinkets are special equippable items with unique gameplay effects limited by an equip cost that forces you to make tough choices.Food scattered across levels fills a meter and restores one of your hearts (your health) per food block you consume. Consuming food is instantaneous so it's easy to refill your health during boss fights, but there's also the Toy Knight trinket you start with and it auto-consumes your food to save you from death. It bailed me out more times than I'd like to admit.
Combat is the other big focus in this game, and it's where things start to fall apart.
It focuses on two combat stances that have their own pros and cons. The one-handed stance is quick with a wide attack range and relies on dodging for defense. Two-handed is slower and hits harder, but automatically deflects incoming attacks at the cost of your guard gauge. Every fight follows the same loop of wearing down the white guard gauge above an enemy's head to stagger them, then deal heavy damage in that window.
It's a simple system, but it's a shame then that the lock-on system undermines so much of it. The camera frequently snaps to the wrong enemy mid-combo without warning, reseting your attack chain, which lets enemy stagger bars fully recover. I had a sequence against two enemies where the lock-on cycled between them so erratically I gave up trying to chain attacks entirely and just waited for one-off openings to strike.
The lack of enemy variety doesn't help, with the game only having around three enemy types that repeat ad nauseam. It tries to mask this by giving enemies different palette swaps, but it's obvious they're the same foes with the exact same attack patterns. Boss encounters are even more frustrating since they rapidly regenerate their stagger meters, and they're huge health sponges, plus they have a second phase that extends their combos to a ridiculous degree.
On the bright side, Sedleo collaborated with industry experts in Historical European Martial Arts (HEMA) for the combat motion capture, and it results in realistic stances and strikes that bring battles to life.
All considered, exploration had some highlights, but be warned that the combat wears you down well before the credits roll.
Presentation and Audio
The visuals are genuinely the best thing 1348 Ex Voto has going for it. Sedleo built the whole thing in Unreal Engine 5, and medieval Italy looks fantastic with its rolling hills, crumbling Apennine ruins, dense forest paths, chapels and villages caught at dusk. At its best it holds its own against A Plague Tale and the original Hellblade visually, which is honestly impressive for a 15-person debut studio.Character models are where it gets iffy. A lot of NPCs have a yellowish, sickly complexion that the plague setting might explain, but it looks uneven regardless of intent. Facial animations are stronger in cutscenes than in real-time gameplay, too, and the difference is noticeable when you see enemy voices not matching their lip movements.
Jennifer English, who Baldur's Gate 3 fans will recognise immediately as Shadowheart, is excellent as Bianca. Meanwhile, London-based actor Alby Baldwin does the voice and motion capture for Aeta and it is also very good. Genuinely their performances are the best part of the entire package, and if the rest of the game matched their highs, we'd be having a very different conversation.
The audio mix has issues though. Sound balance is off in certain sequences, and it pulls you out of the experience at the wrong moments. For some reason during some boss fights the audio volume would suddenly lower, then spike back up the moment the sequence ended. Then there's the 30fps cap on PS5, no 60fps option anywhere, and that goes for PS5 Pro, which I played on. For a 2026 Unreal Engine 5 game, that's a bit difficult to defend.
Taken as a whole, the environments and voice performances are easy to appreciate, but the character model inconsistencies, audio mix issues, and 30fps PS5 lock are hard to overlook.
The Verdict
1348 Ex Voto is a game with a strong setting and genuine highlights that gets undermined by its own combat system. Beautiful environments and an excellent voice cast make it worth a look at the lower price point, but the frustrating lock-on system and an unfocused second half mean it falls short of what it could have been.Final Score: 5.5/10 - Mediocre
1348 Ex Voto details
Platform: PS5, PCDeveloper: Sedleo
Publisher: Dear Villagers
Genre: Action Adventure
Modes: Single-player
A key was provided by the publisher.