The Stamina Economy
A bar that empties on one swing and decides how much of your next swing lands. It is the fight.
Most action RPGs use stamina as a brake on dodging. Here it is a brake on hitting. A single sword swing takes the bar to nothing, and the next swing while it refills is a weaker swing. You are not choosing between attacking and rolling; you are choosing whether this particular attack is worth being defenceless after it.
That single decision reorganises combat. Reach becomes precious, because reach lets you land the one swing you can afford from outside the reply. It is why a spear outperforms a sword early even though the sword is the hero weapon, and why throwing weapons matter more than their damage numbers suggest: a dagger thrown is a swing that costs no bar.
Charge attacks invert the trade once more. You hold, the character winds up, and the hit lands when you release, which means the whole wind-up is a window you have voluntarily left open. Landing one is a read on the enemy, not a burst of aggression.
One honest caveat. Exact frame data, regeneration rates and per-weapon stamina costs are not published anywhere official, and the demo does not display numbers. Everything above is qualitative and comes from watching the bar in play. This page deliberately does not invent percentages.