Melee Combat

Fight up close with knives, tools, rifle butts, bayonets and even your fists. Melee has its own set of animations, attacks, blocks and takedowns, and the AI can fight in melee too.

Fighting

• Enter melee ready, then choose between a main attack, an alternate attack and a special attack (for example a takedown).
• Push and kick to shove enemies back and stun them.
• Block incoming attacks and dodge left or right.
• A stunned enemy can drop their weapon, and hits can disarm.
• You cannot start melee while sprinting faster than a set speed.

Weapons

• Melee weapons include knives, an axe, a fire axe, a splitting axe, a halligan tool, a sledgehammer, a gavel, a kitchen knife and a saber (with a scabbard on your back while it is holstered).
• A rifle butt, a bayonet and an attached knife also work as melee options. Some rifles and pistols can be converted between bayonet and knife through the interaction menu.
• There are also training weapons.

Stealth takedown

• With a melee weapon equipped, you can silently kill an unaware AI from behind, with a key or through the ACE interaction menu ("Silent Takedown").
• Works only on AI, and only when they have not noticed you.

AI and missions

• Mission makers can place a Melee AI module on a unit to make it fight in melee.
• Prairie Fire and Spearhead 1944 have their own melee, which can be switched off in favour of this one.

Settings

Options let you turn melee on or off, scale damage, disarm chance, stamina use and volume, set the sprint speed limit, blacklist melee types, and turn the stealth takedown off. See settings_users.md for the list and keybinds_users.md for the keys (double-tap F to enter melee by default).