Wartales Launch in Steam Early Access is a Decent Success

Wartales grows into another small early access hit. The new game from the creators of Northgard has received positive feedback from 85% of almost 350 users on Steam, who left their opinion about it.

The title also attracted quite a lot of players, although not enough to break into the top 100 most popular positions on Valve's platform. At the time of writing, more than 3.2 thousand people were playing the game at the same time, and at hottest moment of the game's launch in Early Access on Steam there were a thousand more (via SteamDB).

In user reviews Wartales is described as a mix between Battle Brothers and the XCOM series or "a small, party-based survival". The game receives most praise for its atmosphere and vivid world, but also gameplay. Although it is not as merciless as in Darkest Dungeon it does not hold us by the hand and more than once it turns out that the "inevitable" misfortune is the result of our mistakes.

In battles we won't find the mechanics of random chance to hit, well known, loved and hated by players. However, this does not make the playthroughs any easier and it's better to spend some time preparing for the clash. The developers have included a permadeath system, but each fight can be repeated if we are not satisfied with its result.

An important element of Wartales is party management. Although there's not much personalization in the game so far (more on that in a moment), we have to take care of morale (hungry mercenaries are unlikely to fight well) and equipment of the character's subordinates. The latter can be obtained through the item crafting system and mini-games related to various professions (for example, blacksmithing).

This does not mean that there is no legitimate criticism aimed at Wartales. Although the authors of negative reviews also often emphasize the game's potential, some of its elements have so far put them off. Dissatisfied Internet users describe selected gameplay mechanics as "bizarre" or "unclear," which may be partly due to the complete lack of tutorials, even in the form of hints during the game, and thus the need to learn by trial and error.

However, not everything can be explained by problems with understanding the game. Not everyone is enthusiastic about the aforementioned (and in their opinion "annoying") mini-games and the de facto lack of content (e.g. more developed story elements). Some also think that the class system is too restrictive, for example an archer can't use knives. Another disappointment for some players was the lack of interactions between characters in the team and limited customization options.

Then there are the technical problems you'd expect from early access, such as the occasional forced shutdown and the animations being locked to 30 fps. In addition, there are doubts as to whether the price of Wartales (30 euros including discount) is not too high for what the game currently offers.

It should be mentioned that the developers are not deaf to criticism. Under many negative (and not only) reviews you can find answers from the developers, who have also already released two small updates with improvements. In addition, a page for reporting bugs has been launched, which also shows the most frequently reported problems.

One can only hope that the creators will eliminate the biggest problems appearing in Wartales and with time they will start introducing new content. The game is expected to leave Early Access within a year.