Warsaw is a turn based strategy game that puts the player in the space of leading a cell in the Warsaw uprising. The game doesn't pull punches, making it clear how desperate and doomed to failure this uprising is. This could make an extraordinarily bleak game, but the developers do an amazing job giving characters vibrant and realistic backstory, gritty graphics, but somehow injecting some hopefulness into the narrative. It's still grim, but not oppressively so.

What Works Well I want to start with what I think the game does well.

It nails the ambience, shedding light on a segment of history I had no idea about. I can't help but think this was one of the goals of the game. If so, mission accomplished. The game oozes history from the codex entry, the soundtrack, and the variety of enemies tied to Nazi military units.

The combat system is brilliant, initially I didn't quite get it, abilities are tied to where your characters are positioned, and only target certain spots on the board. Weapons and attacks use different types of ammo, and if you run out, you can no longer use those attacks. And finally board position can grant cover, bonus damage, and other benefits. This means combat is a constant jockeying for position, balance between abilities, with multiple routes to success. It was a lot of fun to "crack" and the leveling mechanics for characters help you hone in on specializations for characters.

The game seems to be (I have only beaten it once) largely random, what characters join your crew during the resistance, events, and even missions all seem to be mostly random. This means you could replay it and easily have a very different experience.

Finally, the game length works really well. Most strategy games take dozens and dozens of hours to beat. In Warsaw, I think that amount of time would really wear on the player. Instead, you can beat a campaign in like 8 hours, and then dive back in if you want for a different playthrough. Basically, it stays just long enough.

What Could be Better

My two biggest complaints are sort of tied together. First, since combats and enemies seem to be randomly generated, I didn't feel like I ever had big climatic "boss" fights. This works for the historical setting, but makes missions start to blend together some.

Early on, I had to fight a tank to end a mission, this was thrilling as it was incredibly tough. But I never had this same experience again. I think a few scripted missions, forcing the players to take on tougher, or named targets, could go a long way to giving some ramping of difficulty and sense of drama to endings. Perhaps they avoided this because it doesn't quite fit the historicism.

Along those lines, once you hit the date the uprising was ended, the game just sort of ends. I was hoping for a cut scene, or perhaps scrolling text with images of our characters establishing what happened in Warsaw post uprising. Something to contextualize the "what next" and give a true sense of ending would have been greatly appreciated.

Overall, I really enjoyed Warsaw, it was quick, tactically challenging, and interesting. I'd recommend it to people who want to learn a little history and enjoy strategy games.