Wartorn Preview

I’ve had the opportunity to play the latest build of Wartorn as it enters Early Access on Steam. Developed by Stray Kite Studios, a company formed by members of the teams that worked on Bioshock and Borderlands, this game doesn’t feel like those titles, but instead takes inspiration from games like Hades, Baldur’s Gate 3, Diablo IV, and XCOM 2.

Wartorn is a roguelike fantasy tactics RPG. This title has you battling external and internal threats using elemental and physics-based combat in real-time battles with squads of fantasy creatures that you recruit on your journey, each with their own traits and abilities to use during fights. You follow two elven sisters, Yara and Elani, as they try to reunite their family after their home villa is attacked. The sisters are travelling through the Isles of Talaur to reach Beynun, the location of their ancestral fortress, where they know they will be safe.

When you begin playing and go into the settings, you’ll see a few interesting options. For difficulty level, there’s an option to choose adaptive difficulty, which changes based on how you’re doing. If you are being defeated in battle a lot, there will be fewer enemies to face, but if you are winning a lot, you may need to face more foes per wave, so keep that in mind. If you’d rather, you can adjust the difficulty manually using a slider. You can also change the amount of gore you’ll see while playing. If it’s set to zero, there will be no blood; if it’s at 100%, it will be graphic. The default is set to 80. In this menu, you can also choose the type of controls you want to use between keyboard and mouse or a gamepad. Personally, I found using the controller wasn’t as precise as using computer peripherals.

You select where you want your units to move by pointing the cursor to the desired location and clicking the right mouse button. Once they are placed, you can attack the enemy forces with your base attack or by using one of the special moves available to each type of monster. At any point in the battle, you can use Yara’s special hourglass to slow down time, giving you an advantage over your foes as you plan your attacks and move units to avoid taking damage.

If you happen to fall in battle, you’ll be visited by the Cosmic Stranger, a mysterious lady dressed in green and who is the owner of that magical hourglass. She will return you to your home village to attempt another run. However, all is not lost — you keep the resources that you discovered on your last run. These items can be spent on a variety of things to make your team stronger. For example, the strands and spell pages you’ve collected can be used to strengthen your characters for your next attempt. Visit the Spellbook to redeem the pages and learn new spells for the sisters — one of my favourites is the lightning rod.

If you visit the Sparring Pit, where the training dummies are located, you can select new weapons. Then, finally, visit the Community Tree to upgrade the squads fighting with you. All these buffs are permanent for the rest of your runs. To strengthen your weapons, you’ll need upwards of 100 strands. So, every time you restart, you’ll become stronger for your next attempt.

Wartorn has a gorgeous oil pastel–painted style. All the characters look great, along with the different locales where you battle. The attacks are vibrant, and it feels like you’re inflicting a lot of damage on the enemy. To accompany the visuals, you have great sound effects and an epic-sounding soundtrack. My only complaint is that when you select multiple units at the same time, everyone talks over each other, which gets kind of annoying when you hear, “Into the fray!”, “Let’s sizzle!”, “Follow me!”, and “Attack!” all at once.

I’m having a great time playing Wartorn. I was a little conflicted at first, since this isn’t the type of game I usually play, but the adaptive difficulty makes it accessible for players who don’t have much experience in the genre. Plus, I can honestly say that I’ve never played a game where a chicken, named Clucks, would follow me wherever I went! I’m looking forward to the full release of Wartorn and to seeing what changes will be made before the game fully launches.

The game is in Early Access and is available to check out here on Steam.