Join us in a second free weekend event. If you played in the last one, a bunch of things are different now! Faster walk speed and shorter knockdown times increase the pace. There's a dedicated button for throws in this build, many fixes to online play, balance changes, and some improved graphics, too. For a complete list of differences, see the patch notes.
This Fantasy Strike Free Weekend event runs from August 11-14th on both PC and Mac. You’ll have full access to 8 playable characters. You’ll be able to play online, locally, use our full-featured training mode, and more.
If you enjoy the game and want to support it, please do so on our Fig crowdfunding campaign.
Deployment Schedule
The free period will begin August 11th at 11am PT and end August 14th at 11:59pm PT. For help with time zones, visit timezoneconverter.com.
EUROPE
19:00 BST on August 11
20:00 CEST on August 11
21:00 MSK on August 11
THE AMERICAS
11:00 am PDT on August 11
12:00 pm MDT on August 11
1:00 pm CDT on August 11
1:00 pm AST on August 11
2:00 pm EDT on August 11
3:00 pm BRT on August 11
3:30 pm NDT on August 11
2:00 am SGT on August 12
4:00 am AEST on August 12
6:00 am NZDT on August 12
ASIA
2:00 am CST on August 12
3:00 am KST on August 12
3:00 am JST on August 12
4:00 am AEST on August 12
Installation and Play Instructions
Simply download the Free Weekend build of the game, unzip it, then run the Fantasy Strike app. The app will not function before or after the Free Weekend period.
Free Weekend FAQ
What's different in the game compared to the last free weekend event?
See the complete patch notes, here.
What countries can play during the free weekend?
You can play the game from anywhere in the world!
What content will be available during the free weekend?
8 characters and 4 stages are available. Online play is available (quick match, but not direct challenge of specific opponents—that will be available to our Fig backers of our deluxe and higher tiers right after the campaign ends). There is also a local versus mode, a full-featured training mode, and arcade mode. The game is still in a pre-alpha state, meaning it is not feature complete. The content and features you see are still in development.
What controllers are supported and how do I use them?
Fantasy Strike supports just about any controller, but first, a note about using a keyboard to play. Fantasy Strike works unusually well on keyboard, moreso than other fighting games. Your left hand only ever has to press one of two buttons at a time, never two buttons at once because there is no crouch command. The action buttons fit under your four fingers and thumb, which means the only finger you need to ever move off the home keys is your right index finger to reach the throw button. Even if you use a joystick for most fighting games, you might end up preferring keyboard for Fantasy Strike.
That said, you can use any controller you like (PS4, Xbox, joystick, Guitar Hero controller, etc.). As a temporary feature during our pre-alpha state, while you’re on the main menu you can press and hold any two buttons on your controller. Then a mapping screen comes up that lets you map which physical button on your controller corresponds to which PlayStation 4 button. (Which is X, which is Triangle, etc.) Once you do that, our game recognizes your hardware. The various attacks will be mapped in the default way, and if you like to change which button is super attack, toggle up-to-jump on/off, and so on, you can do that in the button config screen, accessible from the pause menu.
In the release version of the game, we plan to remove that first step (the one where you hold any two buttons to setup your controller). Our goal is that in the future, you’ll plug in any controller and our game will automatically recognize it from a very large library of controllers. We’ll map it for you, instantly, requiring no action on your part. For now, you have to do this step yourself though.
Can I change my username that appears to other players?
When you play online during our free weekend, your username will appear as a randomly generated name. If you’d like to change your name, find and edit the displayname.txt file that’s in the same directory as the game executable. You must launch the game at least once for the displayname.txt file to appear there. Keep in mind that this is only a temporary feature and that if you later play on Steam or consoles that your username will automatically appear correctly in those versions of the game.
Will the Mac and PC versions have cross-play?
Yes. When you play online in Quick Match, you’ll be facing both Mac and PC opponents.
What is the approximate download size of the game?
The approximate download size is 600MB. When installed, it takes about 2GB of hard disk space.
If I have trouble running the game at good framerate, what can I do?
You can lower the graphics quality in the graphics options (there are 4 levels of quality available). You can run the game at a lower resolution, such as 720p. You can also try turning vsync off in the game’s debug options, but we recommend keeping it on if possible because that will reduce the “screen tearing” effect.
Because we are in such an early pre-alpha state, the game is not optimized. We expect to improve performance later in development.
What type of netcode is used?
We use GGPO for online play, which is the best form of netcode for fighting games. This allows our online play to have no input delay so it feels fast and responsive. We are continually improving our implementation so this weekend's online play should be even smoother than in our previous free event, and it will continue to improve more over time.
What if I need more help, or want to talk to other players?
Post on our forums here.
Join our discord text chat here.