I beat Jagged Alliance once—years ago—and coming back to it now, I genuinely don’t understand how I managed it.

This is a deeply frustrating game. It starts off rough: you hire mercenaries, but some arrive without weapons, others with guns but no ammo. You’ll find plenty of .38 rounds early on, but hire someone using .45 and you can run dry almost immediately. Didn’t bring a medic? That’s on you—your mercs will bleed out after a single hit, and serious injuries can permanently reduce their health.

Inventory space is painfully limited, which makes it even more annoying when mercs show up carrying useless junk—like detonators without any explosives. The game expects you to know a lot upfront, but explains very little. On day one, you’re told you won’t earn money until you recover a stolen purifier chip. Where is it? No idea. I happened to go north and found it on a mercenary, but if I’d gone in another direction, I might have been stuck without income for days.

That’s really the core issue: Jagged Alliance rewards prior knowledge more than good decision-making. If you know where to go, you can grab some of the best early gear—like high-capacity vests—in the first few sectors. If you don’t, you struggle.

There are also basic mechanics the game barely communicates. Sneaking exists, but there’s no UI indicator—you just have to know that holding Shift enables it. There are no visibility cones or alert systems, so the only way you know you’ve been spotted is when bullets start flying. Similarly, quick saves exist, but they’re limited to one per day and disappear if you quit the game. I only learned that the hard way.

The difficulty is brutal. I finished my first day feeling confident—three sectors captured, decent loot—but all my mercs were injured. I assumed I could hire better ones on day two. Wrong. None of the good mercs were available, leaving me to either recruit worse replacements or waste a full day recovering.

Combat doesn’t help. Enemies with guns can miss; enemies with grenades almost never do. Early-game grenades can permanently cripple your team, which feels punishing to the point of absurdity. And that’s before factoring in weapon jamming, which seems completely unpredictable.

The game does provide hints, but they’re vague to the point of obscurity. Your employer mentions people feeling sick, a guide hints the water source is to the north—you’re supposed to infer that someone is poisoning it. Keys are another example: they’re visually distinct, but there’s no indication what they unlock. I ended up retaking entire sectors just to test doors.

As the campaign goes on, the cracks become even more apparent. Your team size is theoretically eight, but in practice you’re fielding four at best—one repairing, one healing, one acting as a mule, leaving just a few actual fighters. Progress is slow and often feels like you’re barely holding things together.

There are bright spots. Finding better mercs like Lynx or Scully makes a huge difference, and rifles like the M14 are game-changers due to the lack of proper weapon balance—they’re just strictly better. But even when you know what you’re doing, key missions—like capturing refineries or rescuing Brenda—are punishing and often confusing. Brenda’s capture, in particular, is poorly telegraphed, and rescuing her requires very specific knowledge or trial and error.

By the late game, things don’t necessarily improve. You’re still struggling with money, juggling merc contracts, and dealing with opaque systems. Some mechanics feel like one-offs—like items that only reveal information when equipped, despite nothing else working that way. Others, like native reputation or certain quest items, are barely explained at all.

The final stretch is especially rough. Enemy waves feel endless, weapons jam more often (or at least it feels that way), and the game can even bug out mid-mission. At one point, I resorted to blowing a hole in a wall just to create a viable path forward—which, ironically, was one of the more satisfying moments.

That sums up Jagged Alliance: it’s messy, opaque, and often unfair. Core systems like stealth barely function, combat outcomes feel inconsistent, and the game does a poor job of teaching its own rules.

And yet, despite all that, it’s incredibly engaging. There’s something compelling about its handcrafted design and the constant improvisation it demands. It’s a deeply flawed game—but one that’s still hard to put down.