Wartales (2023)

145 hours in Wartales and only half through the game. I start to feel bad that I haven't bought this but play it on Game Pass, 9,99 Euro feels like stealing at this point.

On the other hand, I am getting achievements less than 3% of the players got and they are not overly complicated to get, so I wonder how the game was received over all. On Game Pass 48% gave it 4-5 stars and 43% 1-2 star (love it or hate it is the theme here I guess), but a lot of the 1 star reviews seem to be for having issues at launch with lost save games, a cardinal sin, while I am playing a stable game without a single bug in 100+ hours ... I am definitely more on the 5 star side of things - patient gamers for the win!

I guess this will be a 300 hour game for me, because I love grinding in it and finding all the little secrets and I take my time with the turn based battles because I will not lose a single party member, not even that stupid wolf with a clear death wish.

This is a GOTY contender for me. I can only hope the game was enough of a success so the game studio behind this will make more games in the future, I might also have to look at their other games now.

I am still playing Wartales. 80+ hours and I have fun. I started a new run because this game makes me want to heavily min-max my party, so it is even 80+ hours with not much to show for when it comes to overall progress.

It does not explain a lot of things well and has its jank, especially in the movement of the group (I don't mind movement to be slow, the group just sometimes doesn't go where I want it to go), but everything else I really like.

The best thing might be how many options you have to make the combat as easy or hard you want it to be. You can choose a difficulty level overall, make the game adjust to your group's size and level or make it region specific so you can grind and overlevel your party.

You being able to decide how big your party is - the bigger the easier the fights (also effects the length of fights) and the harder to keep everyone happy, paid and fed - and how much you want the management part to be a thing, or if you want to be able to save everywhere, or only one save and autosave for the last visit of a city and more.

They really added a lot to the genre (including stuff you need mods for in other games), at least compared to games I know. There is also a lot of replayability.

I also like its dark setting. You can whip your party members to make them work harder or force them to canibalism to survive and a lot of your decisions are how war decisions are: Choose between the bad thing or the other bad thing.

I wonder how this runs on Switch, because it is very taxing on my PC but fine with Geforce Now.

The good things: the turn based combat, developing character skills, capturing animals or enemies...The game has a part which makes it really fun, for some time I couldn't stop playing. Even the animations when you hit a fatal on an enemy are cool.

The bad things: the lack of story, it is too easy to lose members in combat

The VERY bad things:

-You are always on the edge: it is really expensive to get new recruits, which you will need for sure since some will die. Armor gets damaged easily and it is expensive to repair it, it is expensive to heal wounds to the companions...and on top of that you need to feed the company and pay the salaries. So basically you are continuously expending almost every coin you make with missions, which makes difficult to improve equipment, grow the company with new members, etc.

-Traveling from one point to another is so slow. A quick travel feature would have been a great addition.

-Farming materials for new armor and weapons takes forever, you will need a ton of combats.

It is really a pity because solving those issues would make a great great game... until this make me stop playing I could barely keep my hands out of it.

Steam Curator

Wartales took a few hours before it started clicking with me, largely because I don’t think any one of its tentpole features is exceptional. It’s paint by numbers tactics combat doesn’t have any interesting encounter design, and the world and characters are just nodes to be moved by the sandbox RPG mechanics rather than being compelling in and of themselves. So why am I having such a good time and why do I recommend it?

Because Wartales not only nails the harmony between all of its disparate components, but the quiet workhorse that made it all flow for me was the simple progression through those components. It has a firm understanding of how it ticks and manages to inundate you with choice without overwhelming you by it; and its greatest achievement is its consistent ability to make one more hour with it appealing.

Wartales creates a world of permanent conflict and depressing atmosphere. It’s mud-smeared low fantasy aesthetic is a believable analogue to the middle ages Europe its emulating; with the infusion of fantasy elements happening by virtue of plague ridden zombies and giant pustulating rats; just the gross infected stuff to make the lives of our peasants more miserable without giving them anything fantastical to aspire to.

Because Wartales is not a world of heroes and villains; your starting party and anyone you pick up along the way is just gonna be whatever randoms you find in a tavern holding a pitchfork. The only thing on the horizon for anyone in this world is years and generations of more hard, manual labor.

Wartales is no doubt going to be compared to the Witcher series for a lot of reasons; tonally it hits a lot of the same beats with its impoverished and depressing medieval countryside; it’s emphasis is more intimately focused on the subjects rather than those doing the subjecting, and even the soundtrack sounds like the Witcher from the right angles.

Wartales isn’t always an exceptional game but it is always an enjoyable one. It has wheat for its chaff; and despite the fact that its combat and region stories will lose your interest before your time with it ends, it manages to be greater than the sum of its parts with compelling short and long term progression, meaningful pre-combat strategies you can lose yourself in, and even the pockets of physical beauty that manage to peek through its bleak world as you wander through it.

Once you’ve ventured through a region or two you’ll have a good idea of what to expect from the rest of your time with it; but Wartales owns this simple predictability by letting you conquer the balancing act of its systems and the needs of your caravan. What it lacks in surprises and standout features, it compensates for by being made of hardy stock.