Parry mechanics are one of the hardest combat systems to design well. Timing windows, animation priorities, input conventions, player feedback, risk-reward ratios, difficulty scaling. Everything has to thread a needle between "too easy" and "unfair." This piece from the team at Tyrian Games surveys how different games solve parry, and walks through HAWKER's specific parry design and the playtest iterations that shaped it.
TL;DR
- Parry mechanics work when timing is tight, feedback is crisp, and the reward justifies the risk.
- Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is the modern canonical reference. Dark Souls, Bloodborne, Lies of P, and Hades II all have parry systems worth studying.
- Indie roguelites that handle parry well include Dead Cells, Curse of the Dead Gods, and Hyper Light Drifter.
- HAWKER uses parry with specific playtest-driven design choices: parry on click rather than release, cancellable recovery, i-frames on success.
- The parry-on-click decision is load-bearing and deserves its own discussion, because most games get it wrong.
What parry actually has to do
Four functions a good parry mechanic serves.
Reward attention. The player who watches enemy animations carefully should be rewarded more than the player who spams defensive buttons. Parry is the mechanic that converts attention into damage, which is what gives it its specific emotional weight.
Create meaningful risk. A parry that's too easy becomes the default, and the game collapses into parry-only play. A parry that's too hard becomes unused, and the game collapses into dodge-only play. The sweet spot is high-risk, high-reward, with dodges as the safer alternative.
Produce specific combat rhythm. Parry changes the pace of encounters. Pre-parry, players are reactive. Post-parry, they're offensive. The mechanic punctuates combat in a specific way that no other defensive option quite matches.
Scale across difficulty. A good parry system works for new players learning timing and for veterans chaining parries across boss fights. This requires careful tuning of windows, feedback, and enemy behaviour.
The canonical parry games
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (FromSoftware, 2019) is the modern benchmark. The deflect system is tight, demanding, and structurally central. Boss fights are built around parry rhythm, not circumvention. FromSoftware's design philosophy treats parry as the primary combat skill rather than as an optional tool, and the posture system that emerges from parry is what makes boss encounters sing.
Dark Souls (FromSoftware, 2011) has a parry system that's more specialised than Sekiro's. Only specific weapons can parry. The timing window is tight and the recovery is punishing on failure. Parry in Dark Souls is a choice among many, not the central skill, which makes it feel rarer and more satisfying when it lands.
Bloodborne (FromSoftware, 2015) uses the gun-parry, which is mechanically different but functionally identical: interrupt an attacking enemy with a gunshot to create a visceral opening. Tight timing, crisp audio feedback, and a specific rhythm.
Lies of P (Neowiz, 2023) has one of the most recent high-quality parry systems. The perfect-guard window is narrow but legible. Weapons regenerate health on perfect parry, which creates an offensive-defence loop that's rare in the genre.
Hades II (Supergiant Games, 2024) uses parry with the witchcraft casting system. The Omega abilities create parry-adjacent interruptions, and the Melinoe combat rhythm rewards the kind of timing that parry games typically require.
Dead Cells (Motion Twin, 2018) has an explicit parry/deflect mechanic tied to specific weapons. Faster than Sekiro, cleaner than Dark Souls, and it rewards the same attention-to-timing without demanding Souls-scale commitment.
Curse of the Dead Gods (Passtech Games, 2021) has parry-adjacent mechanics tied to the corruption system. Timing and positioning matter, and the game's specific rhythm makes defence as important as offence.
Hyper Light Drifter (Heart Machine, 2016) and Hyper Light Breaker (Heart Machine, 2024) both have combat systems where parry-adjacent defensive options exist but dodge-dash is primary. Still worth playing for their tight combat feel.
The parry-on-click question
One of the hardest parry design decisions is whether parry fires on button-press or on button-release. Most games use button-press (click). Some use button-release (hold and release within a window). The difference matters more than most designers realise.
Click-based parry gives immediate feedback. Player presses button, parry happens. The timing window is the player's reaction. The feedback loop is direct. Most action games use this.
Release-based parry adds an intermediate step. Player holds the button to enter parry stance, releases to commit. This allows for more complex interactions (hold duration could affect parry type, for example) but adds cognitive load.
The issue with release-based parry in practice is that players often press the button, don't release immediately, and perceive the delay as lag or bug. Even if the release window is correct, the player's muscle memory expects action on click. When there's no action on click, the system feels wrong.
Hawker's playtest explicitly flagged this. Our parry was originally release-based, and testers consistently reported that it "felt like a bug" when they pressed and held. The perception of broken mechanic is as damaging as an actual broken mechanic.
Hawker's parry evolution
HAWKER's parry system went through three substantial revisions during 2024 and 2025, each informed by playtest.
Version one (mid-2024). Release-based parry on right mouse button. Hold to enter parry stance, release within a 500ms window to commit. The system was mechanically correct but tester feedback was consistent: the input felt laggy even when it technically worked. "I thought the game froze" was the most common tester comment.
Version two (late 2024). Click-based parry with cancellable recovery. Press to parry immediately, no hold required. Recovery frames could be cancelled by a successful parry or by a specific offensive follow-up. Tester response improved significantly. The parry felt responsive.
Version three (early 2025, shipping). Click-based parry with cancellable recovery, i-frames on success, and a specific counter-attack animation that chains cleanly from a parry. The system is now tight, responsive, and rewarding. Testers describe it as feeling "like Sekiro but less demanding," which is roughly what we were aiming for.
The specific improvements in version three include:
I-frames after a successful parry. For about 300ms, the Hawker is invulnerable. This prevents damage-stacking when multiple enemies are attacking, which was a frequent complaint with version two.
Cancellable recovery. Parry recovery can be cancelled into an offensive follow-up. The player doesn't get locked into the animation, which was another common complaint.
Visible parry window. Enemies telegraph attacks with specific visual cues that precede the parryable frames by a consistent amount. Players can learn enemy telegraphs and time parries without relying on pure reflex. This was specifically suggested by playtesters who found the timing window too tight without the visual aid.
Parry on dagger and flintlock. Different weapons have slightly different parry windows and counter-attack options. This gives players meaningful build variety without fragmenting the core mechanic.
Common parry design mistakes
Four pitfalls that other games have fallen into and that we tried to avoid.
Parry windows that are too tight without telegraphs. Sekiro's windows are tight but enemies telegraph consistently. Games that combine tight windows with inconsistent telegraphs punish the player in ways that don't feel fair.
Parry rewards that don't match the risk. A parry that costs you 30% of your health on failure but rewards you with 5% damage on success is a trap. The reward has to clearly justify the risk or players stop attempting.
No feedback on near-misses. Players learn timing through feedback. A parry that just fails silently (no sound, no visual) makes learning impossible. Sekiro's "missed" sound and Dark Souls' failed-parry animation both teach the player something about their timing even when the parry didn't land.
Parry as the only defence. Games that make parry essential remove meaningful choice. Players who can't learn the timing are locked out. Parry should be the optimal defence for skilled play but not the only defence available.
A first-hand Hawker design note
One of the specific playtest moments that shaped HAWKER's parry happened in mid-2024. A tester had been playing our release-based version and repeatedly failed encounters. Her feedback, verbatim: "It feels like the parry doesn't exist. I press the button and nothing happens."
We watched her inputs. The button was being pressed. The parry was firing on release. She was releasing within the window. Mechanically, the parry was working.
But perceptually, the parry wasn't working, because her expectation was click-to-parry. The gap between press and release, even when it was correct, read as "the game isn't responding." She'd given up on the mechanic entirely by the end of her session.
The fix was to switch to click-based parry. Not to improve the release-based version, not to explain the mechanic better, not to add a tutorial. The underlying design assumption was wrong. Players expect click-to-act in action games. Anything else fights that assumption at a cognitive level, and no amount of tuning can overcome the mismatch.
We've applied this as a general principle since. Mechanics fight the player when they violate input expectations. Mechanics serve the player when they align. The best combat feel is the one the player doesn't have to think about, because the inputs map directly to their muscle-memory expectations. Parry is the mechanic that teaches this lesson hardest, because its emotional weight depends on immediate response.
Parry design for small teams
Four practical recommendations for indie teams adding parry to an action game.
Build the telegraph system before the parry itself. Players can't parry what they can't see coming. Design enemy telegraphs first, then tune parry windows to those telegraphs.
Test with players who have never played your game. Parry feel is heavily shaped by first impressions. Veterans who've learned your specific timing can mislead you about whether new players will feel the system works.
Prioritise audio feedback. Parry feels right or wrong based on sound as much as animation. A good clang on a successful parry, a specific whoosh on a near-miss, a crunch on a failed parry. These three sounds alone do most of the emotional work.
Don't ship release-based parry unless you're sure. Click-based parry is the convention for a reason. Deviating from it imposes a cognitive cost on every player, and that cost compounds across the runtime. If you must use release-based, make the release window generous and the input forgiving.
FAQ
What's the best parry mechanic in games?
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice sets the modern benchmark. Dark Souls, Bloodborne, Lies of P, and Hades II all have high-quality parry systems worth studying.
Does HAWKER have a parry system?
Yes. Click-based parry on the right mouse button with cancellable recovery, i-frames on successful parry, and visible enemy telegraphs.
Why is click-based parry better than release-based?
Click-based aligns with player input expectations in action games. Release-based often feels like lag even when it's working correctly, because players expect action on press.
Is HAWKER a Soulslike?
No. HAWKER is a roguelite ARPG with shop management. The parry mechanic is influenced by Soulslikes but the game structure isn't Souls-like.
How hard is HAWKER's parry?
Tuned for the grimdark-cozy player rather than the hardcore-combat player. Visible telegraphs and reasonable windows. Not as demanding as Sekiro, more demanding than Dead Cells' easiest difficulty.
Can you beat HAWKER without parry?
Dodge-only play is possible but suboptimal. Parry opens offensive windows that dodge doesn't. Skilled dodge-players can still finish the game.
Spoiler wall
Everything above keeps to the demo-line parry mechanics for Hawker. The click-based parry, the i-frames, the counter-attack system, and the visible telegraphs are all shown in the first seven days. Specific late-game parry-upgrade content and boss-specific parry mechanics sit behind this wall.
Closing
Parry mechanics are among the hardest combat systems to design well, and among the most rewarding when they land. HAWKER's parry system came through three playtest-driven revisions to land at click-based, responsive, and tuned for the grimdark-cozy audience. The hardest lesson was that click-versus-release isn't a taste question; it's a question of aligning with player input expectations. We learned it the slow way.
Next read: Designing combat that inverts at night, or The light and shadow mechanic.
Further reading
For related context see HAWKER release date and Early Access guide.