There was an era of fighting games before Street Fighter 2 more or less codified the genre. Games like Warrior, Yie Ar Kung Fu, Karate Champ, and its various clones such as Way of the Exploding Fist and International Karate. Hither came Barbarian, designed by Steve Brown and programmed by Stanley Schembri, released by British publisher Palace Software.
After working on the Cauldron games, Brown had the itch to create something with more ambitious graphics, and being a Conan fan settled on the idea of a one-on-one swordfighting game. The game comes in two parts, the first being a practice/2-player mode in which players fight in various rural areas, and the second part being the single-player mode in which the player has to battle through the palace of Drax the wizard, taking down one opponent at a time while Drax and the princess watch from a gallery above, until facing Drax himself. “The story is just your basic sword and sorcery riff: take a princess, an evil wizard, a disgusting henchman, and so on, and the same is true of the character design – it’s all very Conanesque,” Brown said.
Brown oversaw the re-creation of fighting moves used in the Conan movie, including a sword-twirling attack that he injured himself performing while gathering some reference footage, with the most renowned move being a backward-spinning chop at the opponent's neck. If perfectly executed, with the right timing and spacing while the opponent's guard is down at the precise moment, the opponent is decapitated and the match ends instantly. It's a move that gives hope to even the lousiest players - you're always just one perfect move away from winning no matter what. Adding insult, a squat, pot-bellied goblin will kick the loosened head offscreen like a soccer ball, then cackle while dragging the bleeding carcass off-screen. It was an early game to depict violence so graphically, although such gory action tends to look hilariously cartoonish when rendered in 8-bit graphical styles.
Richard Joseph provided a growling, percussive soundtrack inspired (of course) by Basil Pouledouris's work on Conan, as well as Elmer Bernstein's score for Kings of the Sun.
Like many fighting games, the single-player mode is fun and provides a stiff challenge, but the most fun is in player-vs.-player. Matches have a hyperactive rock-paper-scissors feel in which certain moves are ideal for countering opposing moves. If the players are too close together, a headbutt is useful for scoring a minor hit. If space is needed, or if a player wants to close in quickly, a roll can be executed. Attacks are performed by holding the joystick button and pushing in a direction, while movement is done while the button is left alone.
The photographic cover and advertisements for the game sparked a minor moral panic in the UK. No one much cared about bodybuilder Michael Van Wijk in his bare-chested, Conan-ish gear, but nude tabloid model Maria Whittaker was considered too sexualized by some. The controversy apparently helped boost sales. It would be easy to say that the game was so good that it didn't need any help, but it does appear that the game did considerably better abroad than it did when Epyx released it in the U.S. under the title of Death Sword, with blander cover art. Among European fans, Barbarian is a major classic of PC gaming, but the game doesn't appear to have nearly the same recognition among Americans.
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