We want to tell you more about Units and new features that will arrive with Conqueror’s Blade: Scorpio.

We're always aiming at making Conqueror's Blade's combat experience more vibrant and richer. To this end, we've been adding new units with each season to join our ever-growing roster of units. As it stands, our game comprises more than 100 Units spanning multiple eras and civilisations.

Even so, players new to Conqueror's Blade have access to very few of these. This has led to the early-game experience being somewhat rigid. New players don't have the opportunity to try out a large variety of Units to find the path forward that suits them, plus, it makes it difficult for them to properly team up with others. What's more, players returning after a longer break need a bit of time before they can try out the latest season's Units and content.

Having thought about ways to remedy this, we're going to try out a new in-game feature where you can share Units with other members of your House.
Houses are the game's most crucial social feature as they connect players together. That's why we're first making Unit Sharing available to Houses, Also, after its inception, the feature will only be available via a limited-time event. Hopefully, this feature will help improve the experience for both new and returning players—and it should make it easier for new and veteran players to team up, too.

Senior members of Houses or veteran Cohort members can share their max-level Units with a shared Unit pool. Once there are enough Units in the pool, other members of your House/Cohort can choose Units from among the pool in matchmaking battles (shared Units will retain their Level, Attribute Points and Doctrines). Players who lend their Units to others will also receive rewards in return.


Each player can borrow a limited number of Units each day. When entering a matchmaking battle, you will get a choice among three random Units from the pool (with priority on high-level ones). There is no limit to the number of times a Unit can be borrowed, but these Units are still affected by leadership caps.

While this new feature will give everyone a chance to try out new Units, we're not going to abandon Auxiliary Units. While you can still try out new Units via this feature, we do want it to be more versatile. We're planning the following changes:

With the new season, we're changing Auxiliary Points into Auxiliary Orders, and you'll get an initial number of Auxiliary Orders every Monday. You can also complete daily quests for more of these as well. Whether or not you've spent all of your Orders, they reset to their initial value every Monday.

But that's not all: Auxiliary Orders can also be used to refresh your recruitment selection, giving you access to a new batch of Auxiliary Units. This gives you even more chances at trying out the units you've got your eyes on. Auxiliary Units can be recruited for up to three days, and those you've conscripted become unavailable on Mondays with the reset.

Unit Sharing is new ground for us, and you'll soon be able to try it out in an event coming with the new Season. We'll continue to iterate and improve on it based on the results and your feedback, and it's our goal to make it a permanent part of Conqueror's Blade.

Our aim is always to give you the best gaming experience possible, and your feedback is crucial. Try out the new feature and share your thoughts and ideas with us on Discord!

Strike from the shadows in Conqueror’s Blade: Scorpio, launching as a free update on November 24. Ready your daggers to command units inspired by ancient Persia and its factions, and take on a new Seasonal Campaign featuring two reworked Maps!

Prepare to become a legendary assassin by preordering the Battle Pass in-game with exclusive bonus content today!



Sting like a scorpion with the Chain Dart & Scimitar, the thirteenth Weapon Class in Conqueror’s Blade and the only weapon of choice for a true assassin. Hook enemies into a devastating attack, and deploy a smoke bomb to retreat to safety and plan your next hit.

The Chain Dart & Scimitar will be available shortly after launch. Unlock it on December 8 via new Weapon Challenges!


Even the deadliest of assassins need a loyal band of followers. Recruit new Seasonal units inspired by ancient Persian factions:

• Jangjus (3-Star): This faction is specialised in melee and close-range combat, using scimitars and throwing knives. They fight fearlessly in the face of an unstoppable enemy army with unshakeable bravery.
• Camel Lancers (4-Star): An elite cavalry seen as a symbol of military might. Though their speed may not match horses, their stamina is unrivalled.
• Hashashins (5-Star): Dangerous, elusive, determined. The Hashashins are trained in agility and stealth, allowing them to sneak attack any foe with their guard down.

Rally your band of assassins and revisit the sand-ravaged fortresses of two fan-favourite maps: Kurak Castle Reduxand Empyrean Sands (based on Empyrean Town), now revamped with new features!
Leap into a brand new Seasonal Campaign by starting your assassin’s quest in the Borderlands or Anadolou, and play every week to secure your standing. Battle in twice-weekly Territory Wars with your House and complete Stages to prepare for the final fight in Daicheng at the end of the Season.

The way you’re rewarded for Territory Wars in the new Season is changing! Triumph will now be awarded based on your Battle Score—to learn more, check out the dedicated article.
Preorder the Scorpio Battle Pass to earn exclusive bonus content immediately and when Conqueror’s Blade: Scorpio launches. The following rewards are only available when you preorder the Battle Pass in-game before November 24:

• Scorpio Battle Pass: Active from November 24!
• 2x Greater Scrolls of Glory: Receive 5,000 Glory per Scroll to boost your Battle Pass level.
• 10x Unit Medals: Each Unit Medal grants 5,000 Unit XP to a selected unit.
• 50,000 Bronze Coins: In-game currency.
• 1x Treatise: This allows the War Scholar to excavate ancient battlefields and collect Doctrines to give your units useful bonuses.

Fight for exclusive rewards throughout the new Season, and rise to claim the Noble Hashashin Hero Attire at Tier 100. You’ll also unlock the Guild Agent Hero Attire straight away when you activate your Battle Pass.


The Rune system is back! Augment your loadout with sacred artefacts earned by raising your Seasonal Level.

You can attach Runes to your Warlord’s weapon, helmet, armour, boots, and bracers via the Seasonal Runes tab (by pressing ‘F5’) to grant tactical improvements and special bonuses to your equipment.
When Conqueror’s Blade: Scorpio launches, there’ll be a new way to earn Doctrines! You'll be able to exchange Doctrine Spirits for the Doctrines you want, and the new Doctrine Alchemy system should give you a new use for your old Doctrines that are simply gathering dust.

There will also be a new item type: Doctrine Wisdoms. You can use Doctrine Wisdoms of an equal quality as materials in their place, and earn more powerful Doctrines. Check out the dedicated article for more information.
If you can’t wait to jump into Conqueror’s Blade: Scorpio, you can whet your appetite with an exclusive preview ahead of time! On November 18 from 17:30 CET / 08:30 PT, tune into the official Conqueror’s Blade Twitch channel with your Community Manager hosts Bluntcast & KT_Peridot for a sneak peek at all the content that Conqueror’s Blade: Scorpio has in store.

More information about Conqueror’s Blade: Scorpio and launch events will be coming soon, and you can stay informed by subscribing to the official newsletter and by following Conqueror’s Blade on Twitch, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and Discord.

Conqueror’s Blade is now available to download and play for free on Microsoft PC via MG Launcher and Steam!

In October, we asked you to carve up a creepy pumpkin for Halloween, and you delivered some spine-tingling jack-o'-lanterns!

The judging has concluded, and it’s time to reveal the winners!
Aryia (EU2) submitted a classic pumpkin design complete with spooky candlelit horror!

Aryia will receive the Plague Doctor Hero Attire, 2,300 Sovereigns, and a Pumpkin Head for their efforts!


Tusken (NA3) presented this Jack Skellington-inspired jack-o'-lantern, earning second place.

Tusken has netted themselves the Plague Doctor Hero Attire, 1,100 Sovereigns, and a Pumpkin Head for their petrifying pumpkin!


Third place goes to Role, who sliced up a hair-raising skull pumpkin.



Thank you to everyone who submitted a photo of their petrifying pumpkin, and stay tuned for more contests!

Territory Wars are one of Conqueror's Blade's core game modes, where players must work together with members of their House and Alliance to conquer cities. We're happy to see how active everyone is and that many players enjoy the experience. However, we've also spotted issues and heard feedback that we simply cannot ignore in its current iteration. While we encourage players to work together, the experience of each individual player is important too.

As it stands, most rewards are tied together with the glory of your House or Alliance and don't grant individual players much growth. The way in which the rewards are currently issued poses an issue with their usage too. Going forward, players will be awarded Triumph, and we're diversifying the types of rewards and reward quantity available in the Imperial Store. This means that we're giving you more agency over what rewards you earn. This will in turn serve to give you the rewards that will best aid you in your future Conqueror's Blade journeys.

But that's not all—until now, most rewards have been granted at the end of a Season, meaning that there was little to be gained from Territory Wars during the early and mid stages. This in turn meant that, during the later stages, the occupation or loss of a single fief could have a massive effect on a player’s final rewards. We'll therefore distribute rewards more evenly across the entire Territory Wars period going forward.

With Triumph being the core reward, we'll make the following changes to Territory War:
Campaign Quests and Nobility Title rewards will now only award Triumph. Completing all Campaign Quests will net you 140 Triumph, which will get you close to 10 Treatises if you so choose.
You'll be awarded Triumph based on your Battle Score.

• Added Doctrine reconditioning materials
• Purchase limit of Treatises raised to 20

We hope that this reward revamp will serve as an encouragement for more players to participate in Territory Wars. We'll continue to adjust Territory War's rules and the baseline experience as we go forward. If possible, we also hope that you'll all give us as much feedback as you can.
During the past few months, we've increased the rate of Unit balance changes and expanded their scope, attempted to add extra leadership to the Campaign phases, and designed new modes and mechanics for some maps.

We'll be focusing on your feedback as we progress from here and continue to adjust the game where we deem necessary. We're also looking to try out more new things and see how they pan out. What's more, we'd love for the community to give us all the feedback you have, your feelings and thoughts on the game as a whole, and your boldest ideas which you can share directly with us on Discord!

See you on the battlefield!

Welcome to another instalment of our Q&A series presented by the Conqueror’s Blade development team! In August, we concentrated on questions and answers regarding Conqueror’s Blade: Helheim, and in this new episode, we are focusing on Quality of Life, Customisation, and Ranked Battles!

We’ve assembled your questions and our devs have answered! We hope you enjoy the new insights from the developers at Booming Tech.

Q: Do you have any plans to bring back the previous Open-World Map UI?

A: We hope that we can eventually bring you a beautiful and concise Open-World Map. Unfortunately, while improving the aesthetics of the map function, we did not take into account its interactive design to achieve ease of use. We know why players are missing the old one, which was more customisable and displayed more information on the map. We want to make it easy to read and use—-that's why we made those changes to the world map. But definitely, we will keep improving the map. At the moment, to be honest, we may not take the Open-World Map UI improvement as a very urgent task to be done. If there are any plans for this in the future, we will let you guys know and run a test before officially adding it to the live server.



Q: Are you considering adjusting the Crowd Points system in the Ranked Battles?

A: The original intention of the Crowd Points system is to give extra rewards to players who have performed bravely in qualifying matches. No matter whether the battle is won or lost, as long as they have a good performance on the battlefield, they will be rewarded. In the Colosseum season, we implemented Star-drop protection to ensure the basic qualifying experience for every player. We hope to encourage more active battlefield behaviours through the Crowd Points system, curb the battlefield behaviours of passive games, and purify the battlefield ecology. We will continue to pay attention to the performance of the Crowd Points system in the Colosseum season and continue to adjust the system.

Q: Do you have any plans to optimise communication on the battlefield?

A: We want to bring players a real battlefield experience, but we also want to bring a team experience of full cooperation. Therefore, we have completed the production of the first version of the battlefield communication system, including a fast-marking system and a stable command system. The system is currently being optimised and adjusted. If it goes well, the system will be available in the next season! 

Q: Are you considering creating a single webpage or a spot in-game to view all of the lore of the game so far? 

We're really looking at better ways to present the story, including more acting and easier reading. At the same time, we have also achieved certain results. Of course, being able to experience the stories of past seasons is part of the plan. We are considering improving the way how people are going to read the story, like adding some visual performance to it and improving its readability—-we've already made some progress. We welcome feedback on how we present the story for the current season and the way it is shown.

Q: Are you considering allowing us to save character customisation to be able to switch in one click between different combinations of Hero Attires? 

We understand the importance of an easy-to-use character customisation system for players. Yet, currently, we consider gameplay-related things as more urgent tasks, like improvements in battle performance and experience, or adding more fun and high-quality events to the game. It's a tough choice for us. We do want to have them both, but we have to make the choice.

Still, a huge thank you to all of the players for those good suggestions on the customisation system!



Q: Are you considering creating a 'Skill Reset Token' or something similar?

Compared to adding one more item to the game, we are likely to reduce the difficulty of earning Skill Points or add more interesting quests to help you earn those points. We consider the process of earning those points as training yourself as well, so if it's free to reset skills and re-allocate points to different weapons, that will be losing the initial goal.

Q: Are there plans to open custom hotkey bindings for acceleration, basic attack, block, etc. in the future?

We fully understand the need for more detailed custom buttons, and freedom of control has always been what we are looking for. Binding keys for these very basic behaviours may not be necessary now, and doing it directly may cause more problems. From another perspective, we will try to do some more convenient operation optimisations (such as the operation methods of rolling and sprinting, etc.), and even do not rule out the possibility of doing some more radical exploration. However, if we don't think twice before taking action, the current ecosystem may not that welcome the new changes. For now, we think it is not a must but it doesn't mean no improvements will come.

Q: Do you have plans to allow us to customise even more parts of the Hero Attire, such as removing or replacing elements like horns, features, and other certain details?

We have always paid attention to the need for personalised expression based on fashion. In the past two seasons, we have added the adjustment option of whether the costume mask/cloak is displayed. Of course, this level of expression is not enough. Therefore, there are related functions currently being processed by our research and development team. We will also continue to deepen the personalised expression so that each player can show their style. 

This will be the final instalment of Ask The Devs in its current form. Though we wanted to experiment with a general approach to questions and answers, we feel a more focused approach to development insights allows for a more interesting and timely read. Look forward to new interviews and development articles in the near future!

Black Sails Friday is all about collecting booty and seeking out treasure, with deals available for brave buccaneers until November 24!



Avast, ye scurvy sea dogs! Get your hands on pirate-themed goodies from the in-game store until November 24:

• Pirate Captain Hero Attire: Show off your seafaring style and grab the Victory Pass with this ocean-tastic outfit! (Purchase Limit: 1)
• Sea Horse Mount Set: Ride into battle on the ripples of good fortune with this wavy steed. (Purchase Limit: 10)
• Buccaneers Unit Attire: Plunder the plains of battle with a fierce and fashionable Unit in your crew.
• Kraken Unit Banner: Hoist your colours high and scour the seven seas beneath this fearsome banner.

Gaze upon the treasure available in the in-game store and grab these booty-ful bundles, available with up to 30% off:

• Seadogs Bundle: Everything a corsair could want is included in this bundle, including the Pirate Captain Hero Attire, Victory Pass, Sea Horse Mount Set, Buccaneers Unit Attire, and Kraken Unit Banner! (Purchase Limit: 1)
• Purser's Bundle: What’s a pirate without their doubloons? Get your marauding mitts on hoards of Bronze and Silver. (Purchase Limit: 10)
• Gunner's Mate Bundle: No need to ready the cannons, as this bundle has all the firepower you could need in the form of Random Epic Artillery Chests and Legendary Artillery Selection Boxes. (Purchase Limit: 5)
• Grog & Hardtack Bundle: Lotus Water, Unit Medals, and Scrolls of Renewal will bless your voyage. (Purchase Limit: 5)
• Seven Seas Bundle: Pick up General Supplies and Greater Scrolls of Glory every day! (Purchase Limit: 1 per day. Refreshes daily at 00:00 Server Time)

A bounty of treasure awaits you with the Victory Pass!

Purchase the Pirate Captain Hero Attire before November 21 in-game to access the Victory Pass, complete daily and repeatable tasks and earn booty like Unit Medals, Treatises, Golden Keys, and more!

IMPORTANT: Rewards from the Victory Pass can be claimed until November 24.
Until November 17, lay claim to legendary Units and Weapons from 12 Seasons of Conqueror’s Blade with 20% off Challenges (available from the ‘F5’ menu)!

• Season II: Wrath of the Nomads Unit Challenges
• Season III: Soldiers of Fortune Unit Challenges + Maul Challenges
• Season IV: Blood of the Empire Unit Challenges
• Season V: Legacy of Fire Unit Challenges
• Season VI: Scourge of Winter Unit Challenges
• Season VII: Wolves of Ragnarok Unit Challenges
• Season VIII: Dynasty Unit Challenges + Pike Challenges
• Season IX: Tyranny Unit Challenges
• Season X: Highlanders Unit Challenges
• Season XI: Paragons Unit Challenges
• Season XII: Helheim Unit Challenges

Yo, ho! Outfit budding buccaneers in your Warband with special Unit Attire:

• Blue Scutarii Unit Attire: Treat the Myrmillones to this gilt and blue attire, and prove their fashion prowess. (Purchase Limit: 1)
• Long Claws Unit Attire: Let the Sons of Fenrir reveal their wild side in this ostentatious outfit. (Purchase Limit: 1)

Anchors aweigh!

Please be aware that from 07:00 CET on November 10 (22:00 PST on November 9), the Conqueror’s Blade servers will be inaccessible. The downtime is expected to last for 5 hours.

Please refer to the Patch Notes for documented changes. Meanwhile, stay tuned to our Discord channel in case of any immediate server updates.

The All or Nothing limited-time event is back from November 10 until November 24! Load up Colosseum Mode, enter the fray, and earn Stars to exchange for Treasure Troves.

Every battle won will net you 1 Star, but losing even one battle means losing all the Stars you have earned so far. Exchange them while you can, or risk it all for more Stars!



The Colosseum Mode will be open longer during this period for extra Star-grabbing potential. Check out the new times below:

• 16:00 CET - 20:00 CET (EU) / 07:00 - 11:00 PDT (NA2) / 10:00 - 14:00 EDT (NA3)
• 22:00 CET - 02:00 CET (EU) / 13:00 - 17:00 PDT (NA2) / 16:00 - 20:00 EDT (NA3)

Exchange your Stars for Treasure Troves via the Event Page. After considering player feedback from the last event, your first Golden Trove is now guaranteed to include the Colosseum Weapons Selection Box, meaning you can take your pick of the following Weapon Skins:

• Crowd-Pleaser Poleaxe
• Tridentine Spear
• Cheetah's Dagger

Treasure Troves can include Treatises, Silver Keys, Gold Dust, Artillery, and Victory Horns and Protection Charms that can be consumed for a special bonus before a battle.

Using a Victory Horn will grant 2 Stars for a win, and consuming a Protection Charm will prevent the loss of Stars if you are defeated.

Protection Charms can also be purchased from the in-game Store for added protection.
Take on Daily & Weekly Quests from the Warden to earn Bronze, Honour, Protection Charms, and Victory Horns to use in your pursuit for Stars!

In this article, we'll be discussing Doctrines and the changes we have in store for them. We hope that the changes will enable Doctrines to provide more varied gameplay and battles. Of course, the most important thing is to make the game fun!
We've heard plenty of players talk about their issues with Doctrines. Your feedback helped us realise that the power difference between Doctrines is often too large, and they're too difficult to acquire, making the entire system off-putting. Our initial design intention was for everyone to be able to use Doctrines on a level playing field, and for them to create more variety in battle.

Going forward, our core idea is that efforts must be rewarded. We want everyone to have a fun time growing their Units. That's why we're combining the core content of each Season: Battle Pass, Seasonal Units, Territory Wars and Doctrine Acquisition.
Starting with the upcoming Season, we'll provide a new way to earn Doctrines. You'll be able to exchange the new season's item, Doctrine Spirit, in the Exchange (‘X’) menu for the Doctrines you want.

You'll be able to exchange one Doctrine Spirit for one Epic Doctrine.

The types available will be based on the Season's phase, and we'll have more to reveal about Doctrines in the next Season closer to launch.



You'll be able to acquire two Doctrine Spirits every Season. The acquisition cap of Doctrine Spirits resets with each Season.

You can get one Doctrine Spirit by reaching Tier 100 in the Season's Battle Pass (available on the Free Pass), and one by completing the fifth stage of the Season's 5-Star Unit challenge. Progress toward this only counts toward the 5-Star Unit of the current Season.

Doctrine Spirits are retained over Seasons, so you can always stock up on some to get a headstart in a new Season.

By combining our seasonal content, you should have clearer goals to work toward for rewards while also giving you the chance to experience more of each new season's content.
Have you ever found yourself opening your inventory only to see it full of Doctrines, few of which are usable? Apart from taking up bag space, low-level, duplicate, or old Doctrines don't serve any purpose. The new Doctrine Fusion system should give you a new use for your old Doctrines that are simply gathering dust.

Doctrine Fusion allows you to use your old unwanted Doctrines to create new ones. For example, if you've got a couple of Resource Doctrines in your inventory but you don't really gather them in the Open-World, then you can use these to create a completely new Doctrine. Or, if you've got plenty of rare and uncommon ones just gathering dust, you can use these to create a new one.

IMPORTANT: The Doctrines you create cannot be attained from Treatises.
We know just how difficult it can be to get Doctrines, so we've added a new item type: Doctrine Components. If you've got Doctrines you don't want to part with, you can use Doctrine Components of an equal quality as materials in their place, thereby earning more powerful Doctrines.

There are plenty of ways to acquire Doctrine Components, such as Matchmaking Battles, Territory Wars, Events, raising your Battle Pass level, and through the Fame Store. By not making it available in the Store, we want to encourage you all to earn it during your daily battles and conquests.

We're really excited about this new system, and we'll keep an eye on community feedback and continue to adjust Doctrine Fusion going forward to ensure as great an experience as possible.

Some of you may not have kept either Treatises or Doctrines, meaning you can't try out the new feature when it drops. However, we've prepared a gift awaiting you all in the new season—-simply login every day once the new season hits to earn 50 Ancient Treatises, and join the event that reduces the consumption of Lotus Water. Stay tuned for more detailed information.

IMPORTANT: This article is accurate as of the time of publication but may be subject to change. Please check in-game for correct terminology for in-development features such as the Doctrine Spirit, Doctrine Fusion, and Doctrine Components.

With Conqueror’s Blade: Colosseum approaching its Season finale, we spoke to Dr Christopher Epplett — lecturer at the University of Lethbridge, historian, and author of Gladiators & Beast Hunts: Arena Sports of Ancient Rome and Gladiators: Deadly Arena Sports of Ancient Rome — for a retrospective on the gladiator-themed update.

Dr Epplet’s interest in Ancient Rome began when he was a child, and after studying Classics, he went on to get his doctorate at the University of British Columbia.

Read on to see what the man himself had to say on everything from Ancient Rome to gladiators, and of course Conqueror’s Blade: Colosseum.



What do you think of Conqueror’s Blade: Colosseum?
It looks interesting! In terms of the gladiator types—-the Retiarii had a little more armour than I would suggest, although I realise this is a video game and you can't have everything, or you might want to spruce it up. Although you still got the basic weapon right and so forth, such as the spear. I can understand, again, in terms of the game aesthetic where you might want the Retiarii to wear a little more exciting armour, rather than basically walking around in a loincloth. There wasn’t anything [in terms of the gladiator Units] that leapt out at me as being completely off base.

Now you know how we portrayed gladiators in Conqueror’s Blade, how do you feel Ancient Roman culture and gladiators are portrayed in video games generally?

From what I've seen in my limited sample size, it's a little bit like Hollywood in that they often get the broad outlines right, but some of the details are changed. Sometimes it might just be a mistake; other times I can understand it's trying to fit into the design concept of the game.

It's the same with Hollywood where again, they get the broad outline right but they take some shortcuts and so forth for the sake of the narrative or the film, like the movie Gladiator. If you look at that film closely as an ancient historian, there are some things that certainly aren’t a hundred percent correct. One example I'll quickly give is when that gladiator comes out of retirement to fight him. What he's wearing, that fancy helmet, is actually a Roman cavalry helmet that they wore on parade. Evidently, the producers thought it would look nice and it does look cool.



So we've talked about the units in Conqueror’s Blade: Colosseum, and you've said that they're pretty good historically. What do you think of our 6v6 Colosseum mode? Could such large team fights have occurred in Ancient Rome?

There could be on occasion, yeah. I mean, we're more familiar with the one-on-one, but they could have larger groups fighting like that. There's nothing inherently wrong about having a six against six. One of the things they would do, and this would be even larger than six against six, they would reenact ancient battles. For some of their maritime spectacles, they'd find a body of water, or in the early days of the Colosseum, they may have flooded the Colosseum floor itself and put some boats in it.



In our research on keeping gladiators and feeding them and training them, we read that they were taught not to kill their competitor in the bouts if they could help it. Have you found that to be true, or is this only true of when emperors fought, such as Emperor Commodus sparring as a secutor?

Certainly, whenever an emperor got into the arena (the sources don't really go into detail about this), I'm sure various safety measures were observed to make sure that the emperor in question wasn't killed. The one example I can think of in terms of Commodus fighting animals in the arena was they would have an elevated walkway so he could run around and shoot animals with his bow in perfect safety. The one general point to keep in mind is that yes, gladiatorial boats generally were much less fatal and much less bloody than people commonly believe.

One thing to keep in mind along these lines is particularly in the later empire when the economy became worse and worse, and the cities of the empire, including Rome herself, found it more and more difficult to fund the spectacles. One thing to keep in mind in this context is how expensive gladiators were, so if you as an organiser had rented out a group of gladiators to fight in your spectacle, you'd already paid a considerable amount of money, and for any that were killed, presumably, you would have to pay more. So, it was in the spectacle organiser's best interest to keep casualties to a minimum. In the case of the emperors, at least in the early empire, they had all the funds they wanted, so they didn't have to worry as much about fatalities.

Forced servitude as a gladiator was not the most glamorous life, but there was some sort of fame that came from being successful. Would you perhaps compare them to modern-day cage fighters?

I think in certain respects you can make that comparison. I've also heard them compared to rock stars. Certainly, at least some of these gladiators appear to have got a genuine thrill from going out and demonstrating their testosterone by besting their opponent on the arena floor, which goes right along with cage fighters. I think even today we're not as evolved as we like to think we are, I think there's still a hidden part of many people that enjoy combat sports with real risks.

I don't really watch MMA, but I have nothing against it. I don't watch it but I've seen instances or seen clips where the crowd is cheering when a guy gets his arms snapped or whatever. Gladiators and their parallels with rock stars or MMA fighters or what have you—there's the same thing when ancient authors talk about the sex appeal of gladiators. I think at least for some of the gladiators involved; it stoked their ego. We know for a fact some people volunteered to become gladiators. They weren't necessarily compelled to because they were prisoners of war or because they were financially destitute, they did so of their own free will.



We produce a series of articles called Conqueror’s Tales where we write about the historical influences behind the game. We recently published an article on female gladiators or gladiatrixes. What evidence have you come across to corroborate the existence of female gladiators?

It's very scattered. The relief of the two female gladiators fighting [Amazonia and Achillia], that's from modern-day Turkey, and we might perhaps extrapolate from that, that female gladiators were not unheard of periodically. I think despite the moral condemnation that such participants in the games might attract in Rome, one thing that spectacle organisers seemed to have been looking for constantly over time was novelty, because if you kept showing the same thing over and over, eventually, your audience would get bored.

Putting in a novelty like female gladiators certainly appears to have been one way to pique spectator interest. Even in Rome, the appearance of female gladiators from time to time is something that sparks interest again, despite the moral condemnation that we hear about in the sources. That relates to the idea that it was unseemly for women to appear in the arena, particularly women of higher status. It's along the same lines of the same condemnation of when men of senatorial or high status go into the arena. Hence there are attempts through legislation and the like to shut both of these things down. We can certainly say that the female gladiators who we hear of periodically were not an isolated phenomenon.

What meaning do you personally think is correct of the “thumbs up” and “thumbs down” gladiator gesture?

I'm not going to die on a hill over this, but I'm almost more sympathetic towards the idea that we've got it wrong, because the basic line is, “the thumb turned” to indicate death. But again, if you think that when you're walking along your thumb's natural position is down, then, it could be this (gestures upwards).

Thank you to Dr Christopher Epplett for speaking with us, and to all our players, we hope you enjoyed Conqueror’s Blade: Colosseum! Stay tuned for news on the upcoming Season very soon.