Copy provided by developer.
I learned something in my relatively short time playing Wartorn this week. I am way out of my league for this game genre. Wartorn is a really damn hard game, for a few reasons.
Reason 1 is because the graphics are highly stylized and when the game gets chaotic (and it does) somewhat hard to understand what’s going on at any given time. Skirmishes can sometimes become a mishmash of colors, making it hard to see which of your units just randomly stops attacking. It can also make it difficult to figure out who you need to move where to get them out of harm’s way until it’s too late.
The second reason is that the game is a roguelite, meaning you’re meant to play it many times over a long period to slowly build up your stats and become more powerful, meaning the deck is stacked against you at the start.
At least in my time playing it felt like the health pools of enemies got unfairly massive very early on, ensuring that I literally had no chance of getting far with my ever dwindling forces. I know the game is supposed to be set in a rather depressing mood but this did get frustrating watching my units slap away at a giant foe who had no trouble killing them all.
But Wartorn does have some neat ideas. You control a caravan traveling through a set path. You pick up refugees, grab new units, fight bad guys, and recover materials as the game progresses. Once your soldiers are wiped out you go all the way back to the start, spend some permanent resources for stat upgrades, and start it all over again.
The main gameplay is a small-squad real time strategy game where you have hero units as well as other units you pick up on the battlefield. You’ll have to navigate them through various maps with differing objectives like escaping and defending your caravan. Each unit has its own special attacks.
Wartorn has dynamic combat, meaning you can do fancy stuff like drench enemies in water and then hit them with a lightning bolt for higher damage. Assuming your water mages aren’t killed early on.
Here’s some b-roll footage because I didn’t record my own.
My biggest annoyance with Wartorn during the short time I got to play the preview is that the difficulty seems to hit a cliff. Like I walked into boxing class and the trainer let me punch his gloves twice before subbing in Daniel Dubois for a live sparring match. I never felt like I had much of an opportunity to learn the units before the game just started kicking the crap out of me.
I think one thing the game could use is a way to recover units. Or if it exists, it needs to be better explained. It was dismal watching my useful units slowly dwindle in size and power as I continued on.
But still, this could be a great game when it comes out. Wartorn hits early access on June 17. Check it out on Steam and Epic.
MMO Fallout 