File:Battle Brothers Review

Description
Lok’tar humans! This is a review of fun XCOM style, turned based strategy game, Battle Brothers, developed by the indie German developers at Overhype Studios.

Currently as of April the game is in early release, which can be unsettling because you are buying essentially an unfinished product, but that shouldn’t dissuade you if you want to cough up $20 and like a more sandbox open-end adventure for roughly 6-10 hours of content to enjoy.

The main premise of the game is that you control a band of mercenaries in a randomly generated, medieval fantasy, war-torn country. Each character in your party has a detailed back story such as a scholar, solider, vampire hunter, or a simple beggar. You purchase these characters to increase your band of mercenaries to the max party size of 12, as surely some will die along the way in this dangerous field of work. There is an initial fee to hire them, which can be much higher based on the characters skills, as well as a weekly fee to retain them. Some might easily desert you, while other will remain loyal to the end even if you run out of coin; they’re mercenaries after all.

There are plenty of weapons of all shapes and sizes. You can build a fighter and bash other NPCs using the hex grid battle system. Or you can try to riposte and counter when someone attacks you. As your characters level up with each successful battle encounter, it is pretty detailed, you can increase many stats like their willingness to stand in the face of other comrades dying, health points, defense, and attack power. Also there are talent tress or perks that can be offensive, defensive or utility, again adding a little touch to each character as you level.

There are many monsters: werewolves, skeletons, orcs, zombies, and bandits, which makes the battles even more dynamic. Orcs might charge across the battlefield and stun your front line warriors, while zombies will appear out of the earth as the fight persists.

This game is someone reminiscent of Darkest Dungeon party system with a hint of difficulty, and a somewhat vast world. Currently there is no overarching story, and consists basically just quests to explore other cities, escort trade caravans, and destroy enemy outposts. I’ve only had the game crash once, and it AutoSaves before each battle just in case something goes wrong.

For $20 you basically get 6-10 hours of fun medieval strategy combat. For this game to really improve it will need more detailed quests, an overarching story, and maybe an MMO/multiplayer feature, or server feature would make this game insanely popular in my opinion as it has a no holds bar difficulty, and fighting other players would be fun. Also currently the battles are like a chess game, where a character, or piece simply hops into a designated hex. However, it would be nice to see a full model, like we do in XCOM with full animations. Maybe also adding a captain to lead your weary battle brothers would be a nice touch as well.

Overall I recommend the game, and give it 8.5 orc axes out of 10, with a lot of potential to occur in the future if Overhype Studios continues to add features, because the game has good value where it is.

Like, subscribe, comment, and I’ll see you on the battlefield human!

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Game Name: Battle Brothers Price: $19.99 Buy Link: http://store.steampowered.com/app/365360/ Genre: Indie, RPG, Strategy, Early Access

Battle Brothers is a turn based strategy RPG mix which has you leading a mercenary company in a gritty, low-power, medieval fantasy world. You decide where to go, whom to hire or to fight, what contracts to take and how to train and equip your men in a procedurally generated open world campaign.