Reality is often disappointing. One of the avenues of said disappointment is reflected in the fact that laws of physics and human biology prohibit the creation of giant swords of the kind we see in video games.
Greatswords are, well, great, but not exactly similar in the use of appearance to, say, Cloud Strife’s arsenal of swords the size of a railroad track. To distract you from this unfortunate state of things, we’ve prepared a list of games which love big swords and don’t try to pretend otherwise. We didn’t arrange the games in any particular order.
| Game | Released | Genre | Developer | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Devil May Cry 5 Standard Edition | 2019-03-08 | Action | Capcom Development Division 1 |
 | Monster Hunter World | 2018-08-09 | Action | CAPCOM |
 | Darksiders Genesis | 2019-12-05 | Adventure | Airship Syndicate |
 | Darksiders Warmastered Edition | 2010-09-23 | Adventure | Kaiko |
 | SOULCALIBUR VI | 2018-10-19 | Action | Project Soul |
 | FINAL FANTASY VII | 2013-07-04 | RPG | Square |
 | Final Fantasy VIII | 2013-12-05 | RPG | Square |
 | World of Warcraft: Shadowlands | Base Edition | 2020-11-23 | MMO | Blizzard Entertainment |
 | Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin | 2015-04-01 | RPG | FromSoftware |
 | BERSERK and the Band of the Hawk | 2017-02-21 | Action & Shooter | Omega Force |
 | Warframe: Starter Pack | 2013-03-25 | Action & Shooter | Digital Extremes |
 | God Eater 3 | 2019-02-08 | Action | Marvelous First Studio |
Devil May Cry 5
| Release date: | 2019-03-08 |
| Genre: | Action |
| Developer: | Capcom |
| Examples: | Rebelion, Sparda, Dante |
Devil May Cry as a proper Japanese-made game has its share of improbably large swords, which make the most iconic one look plausible by contrast.
By size, Rebellion is closer to a greatsword, even if it looks more like a longsword. But it’s tiny when compared to the other two swords which make the list. One of them is Sparda, and in its DMC5 version, it’s a massive, organic-looking blade similar to SoulCalibur’s Soul Edge. The other is a spoiler, so turn away now. It’s called Dante, and it looks mostly like Dragonslayer from the Berserk manga covered in a lava crust down the middle. It’s ridiculously large when compared to Rebellion.
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Monster Hunter: World
| Release date: | 2018-08-09 |
| Genre: | Action |
| Developer: | CAPCOM |
| Examples: | Great Sword, Longsword, Switch Axe |
When the monsters you hunt on a regular basis could swallow you whole, stomp you into the ground, or inflict other kinds of pain, your only recourse is being able to hit back just as hard. And Monster Hunter: World, like other games in the series, gives you the tools to do it.
First of all come Great Swords, which are usually as tall as the hunter, wide enough to act as a shield, and they hit like a ton of bricks, with just as much grace. Longswords, on the other hand, are oversized katanas, much faster, but not hitting quite as hard. Finally, there’s the Switch Axe with turns from a huge axe to a huge sword, and one of its moves allows the hunters to swing it until they run out of stamina.
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Darksiders
| Release date: | 2010-09-23 |
| Genre: | Adventure |
| Developer: | Kaiko |
| Examples: | Chaoseater, Armageddon Blade |
Darksiders is a game which has a lot going for it, and most of it happens at the protagonist’s massive sword, Chaoseater. Nearly as tall as War is, with a vicious line of its edge, and demonic faces engraved on the flat of it, Chaoseater takes no prisoners.
The second sword War helps to reforge towards the end of the game isn’t any smaller. The Armageddon Blade looks hefty even in the hands of Ulthane, who, even compared to already tall War, is like a giant. And it has power appropriate for a blade of this size and appearance, but that would be spoiling too much.
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SoulCalibur VI
| Release date: | 2018-10-19 |
| Genre: | Action |
| Developer: | Bandai Namco Studios |
| Examples: | Soul Edge, Soul Calibur |
Soul Edge is one freaky sword. Itself a demonic presence, it’s happy to change shape to suit its users’ particular taste in weapons so as to tempt them better.
In the hands of the likes of Siegfried, it’s a massive, organic-looking slab which looks like it might eat your soul. It has a counterpart, though: the Soul Calibur, a crystalline sword formed from a splinter of S. Edge. Calibur doesn’t appear in SoulCalibur VI but is otherwise a mainstay in the series, and sometimes looks barely sword-like, such as in its SC IV version.
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Final Fantasy VII
| Release date: | 2013-07-04 |
| Genre: | RPG |
| Developer: | Square |
| Examples: | Buster Sword, Masamune |
Although Cloud discards the Buster Sword early on in the game (which is odd, considering its origin), he doesn’t lose the affinity for huge swords and gets to use many of them before the final confrontation with Sephiroth.
One-Winged Angel himself uses Masamune, a katana with a total length that would be more suitable for a polearm rather than a sword. Somehow Sephiroth is capable of using it to a lethal degree.
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World of Warcraft
| Release date: | 2022-11-28 |
| Genre: | MMORPG |
| Developer: | Blizzard Entertainment |
| Examples: | Ashbringer, Gorribal |
The world of Warcraft, and, by inclusion, World of Warcraft, loves it’s stylistically oversized equipment, from pauldrons rivaling Games Workshop’s products to swords which kind of had to be big for the player to see them from the zoomed-out view.
The style carried over to WoW, which despite no such excuse luckily decided to keep with the theme. There’s the Ashbringer, for example, a big chunky sword, coming complete with an orb embedded on its back edge. But it pales in comparison with Gorribal, the sword of titan Sargeras, which is of planet-piercing size. It would be hard to go much larger than that and it is definitely one of the biggest sword and weapons overall in video game history.
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Dark Souls 2
| Release date: | 2015-04-01 |
| Genre: | RPG |
| Developer: | FromSoftware |
| Examples: | Greatswords |
Dark Souls loves its European medieval stylings, and it loves its Berserk references. A few things could have come out of this, and one of them are massive swords. There’s even a special class for them: the Ultra Greatswords, exemplified by two swords from Dark Souls 2.
Blades such as Pursuer’s Ultra Greatsword, or the Fume sword are huge. Not only do they lack a ricasso or a long handle, but a historically slim greatsword blade in their version is the size of a railroad track, and would be of comparable weight. Who cares, they look great.
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Berserk and the Band of the Hawk
| Release date: | 2017-02-21 |
| Genre: | Action & Shooter |
| Developer: | Omega Force |
| Examples: | Dragon Slayer |
Kentaro Miura’s Berserk manga has been going on since 1988 and remains successful despite numerous hiatuses. Its protagonist, Guts, is perhaps the most iconic user of humongous swords other than Cloud Strife.
In a Dynasty Warriors-alike game Berserk and the Band of the Hawk, we actually get to play as Guts and swing his sword, the Dragon Slayer. Considered a horrifying, weird weapon even in-fiction, nothing short of demonic Apostles is capable of resisting its impossible weight coupled with Guts’ monstrous strength.
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Warframe
| Release date: | 2013-03-25 |
| Genre: | Action & Shooter |
| Developer: | Digital Extremes |
| Examples: | War, Paracesis, Galatine |
Warframe doesn’t concern itself with petty physics too much. Instead, it concerns itself with letting players to cool stuff in-game. That includes creating numerous types of weapons, among which there are “Heavy blades”.
First, we may use Gram, built like a massive cleaver, or Galatine, which almost looks like a functional greatsword. Then there are less straightforward weapons. War is an animesque giant sword with laser elements, while Paracesis is a sophisticated sword curving towards its edge.
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God Eater 3
| Release date: | 2019-02-08 |
| Genre: | Action |
| Developer: | Marvelous First Studio |
| Examples: | Buster Blade, Long Blade |
Much like Monster Hunter, God Eater concerns itself with fighting oversized enemies with oversized weapons. This one uses the frame of reclaiming a post-apocalyptic world from the Aragami monsters.
Your tools are weapons called God Arcs. There are a couple of choices if big swords are of interest. One is the “Buster Blade” category, and true to their chunky structure they deal with both slashing and crushing damage. Their swift counterparts are Long Blades, with don’t pack as much of a punch but are faster.
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Physics be damned
This, of course, does not exhaust the list of massive swords in the worlds of video games. We didn’t, for example, mention the Wailing Dark from Asura’s Wrath, which has a length of 380 THOUSAND kilometers and also is a katana. This is merely meant to be the starting point of your personal journey towards the heftiest sword in gaming, but we think our suggestions will suffice for a while.