Controls

Anvil Empires is played from a fully 3D third-person perspective using a keyboard and mouse setup. The control scheme covers movement and combat, building and crafting, inventory and item management, mounting and vehicles, and faction-wide communication. Most actions are mapped to letters within easy reach of the WASD cluster, and many keys also serve as alternate-mode toggles for the currently held weapon or tool.

All bindings below reflect the most recent pre-alpha tests of the game. Siege Camp has rebound several keys across major updates, so expect occasional drift in future builds. The in-game settings menu lets players rebind nearly every action to a key of their choice.

Movement and Camera

Combat and Held Items

Each avatar carries one primary item and one secondary item. The primary slot is usually the weapon, while the secondary is for shields, lanterns, tools, or thrown items. The R and F keys swap which slot is currently armed, and the C and X keys trigger alternate behaviours for the armed item, such as block stance on a shield or aimed shot on a bow.

The MS 67 build reworked the combat control scheme, and the studio recommends resetting keybinds to defaults before playing it. Guard moved back to the right mouse button and is now raised deliberately rather than held up automatically, dropping on its own whenever an attack is thrown. Each weapon gained two extra attacks: Ctrl with left mouse performs the secondary attack and Alt with left mouse performs the tertiary. With a weapon or tool armed the avatar turns to face the mouse cursor at all times, so the left mouse button no longer has to be held to aim. Holding the sprint key while standing still winds up a charge.

Interaction and Inventory

Holding Alt reveals nearby structures that are available to rent, and holding Alt while pressing the right mouse button on another player opens a barter request for the secure Item Exchange. Certain structures also appear in a Nearby Structures menu, which makes them selectable in crowded areas where clicking the right object is difficult. The cursor is now locked while the camera is being rotated, and menus close when further movement input is detected.

Building and Construction

Building is one of the deepest control surfaces in Anvil Empires. The B key opens the structure menu, which shows everything currently buildable from the avatar's pledged Settlements or held equipment. Right mouse rotates the ghost preview before placement, and the Z key disables grid snapping for off-grid placement during siege scaffolding.

Map and Information

Communication

Voice chat is local-only in normal play. Pressing T while in range of allied avatars opens push-to-talk, and N toggles voice on and off. Typed messages go to a faction or alliance channel via the Enter key.

Social Controls

The Nearby Players list in the social menu shows every allied avatar in voice range. From this list a player can mute another player outright or set a per-player volume slider that persists across the test. The list is the primary tool for filtering out unwanted voice chat without leaving local voice entirely, which keeps tactical callouts audible while suppressing disruptive players.

Tips for New Players

New players should remember that the R and F keys are the fastest way to recover from a fight that has gone sideways: R reloads or readies the primary, while F swaps to the secondary slot. In a melee scrum, holding the secondary slot on a shield and tapping C to alt-mode block can save an avatar from being committed to a dropped weapon. The build menu (B) and the inventory (Tab) close instantly when a hostile lands a hit, so they are safe to open in the middle of a fight as long as the avatar is not actively swinging.

Most bindings can be remapped in the settings menu under Controls. Some players prefer to bind Push (default Space) to a side mouse button so they can shoulder-bash enemies off ramparts while still firing arrows, and others move the build menu to Q if they rarely mount horses. Whatever the layout, the priority should be keeping E, R, and F within easy reach because those three keys carry the bulk of moment-to-moment play.