Wartorn, a roguelite action RTS, is the brainchild of Stray Kite Studios and Paul Hellquist, Creative Director. Hellquist was the lead designer on Bioshock, but also has credits on SWAT 4, and was Game Design Director on Borderlands. Stray Kite Studios has been partnering with 2K Games and Gearbox Software for projects like Borderlands 2: Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep: A Wonderlands One-Shot Adventure, but Wartorn is their first fully developed and published product. As a studio, they have experience with franchises like Saints Row, Age of Empires, Fortnite, and Destiny. So even though Wartorn is only just entering Early Access, it’s sure to be one to watch.
Wartorn Is a Time-Bending Roguelite RTS With Big Ideas
Wartorn is the story of two young elves, Yara and Elani, and their journey to survive their home being besieged by Imperia, with a world at war. Their journey to find their family, if they are still alive, and get justice for themselves becomes much more complicated than a simple revenge tale. Gods, the aspects that serve them, supernatural forces, thieves, and opportunists don’t make it easy. As followers of Adara, Yara and Elani decide to do the honorable thing and meet their Imperia attackers head-on. Outnumbered, despite the player’s best efforts, everything, including the young elves themselves, is set ablaze. This is not where their story, or the game, ends.
The day of the invasion was also Yara’s Recognition Day for her coming of age and becoming an official speaker of Adara. Much like a sweet sixteen or Bat Mitzvah, there is cause for celebration, ceremony, and gifts. Due to the war, only Elani, her elder sister, was present to give her a beautiful painting, and the only other gift she received was the key to reversing the mistake she made in charging an entire Imperia army later that day. A mysterious hourglass of unknown origin not only brings the sisters back from the brink of death, but also puts them in front of the ever-mysterious Cosmic Stranger. With an ability to go back in time to one of the worst days of their lives, Yara and Elani have their work cut out for them to change their cruel fate.
Wartorn’s premise isn’t unique, but it sets the stage for your many failures in this roguelite, and how you’ll come back from them stronger, and hopefully less prone to losing hope of succeeding, starving, or dying outright. Yara and Elani are joined by friendly faces who also disagree with Imperia’s methods as they escape their home and find out the truth, forming a caravan. Your caravan will need to maintain gold, food, take on refugees, and build your military power as you encounter threats of all kinds. You’ll find family members such as Yara’s beloved pet chicken Clucks, or their nanny from childhood Voxyra the imp. While a heartfelt reunion is good for morale, these family members each have skills and can even unlock new conversation paths to choose.
Wartorn is a beautiful game, with the overworld map filling in as you traverse it with a hand-drawn, painterly style. Starting to play, I was a little shocked seeing how the game is animated. Everything seems to have a “mosaic filter” over it, which created a jarring, but ultimately pleasing visual style I haven’t seen before in video games.
As for gameplay, there is a bevy of mechanics to get behind and tinker with: flanking damage, physics, elemental weaknesses and combos, different squad choices, and more. Do you spend strands, mythical pieces of the Knot, on improving your forces at the Community tree, or on Yara and Elani’s combat proficiency? Which weapons should the sisters use? Which family member should you take with you on your journey? While this is just a preview, Wartorn is not short on ambition. I do hope unit pathfinding gets much better as it enters Early Access, as I often found my units getting stuck on terrain (or each other!) instead of taking care of the sisters’ enemies. I am also not sure the game’s physics are doing it any favors, but perhaps Stray Kite Studios will be able to tweak it before the game actually reaches version 1.0.
The game did not have certain remappable keys as of writing, but the developer did state, as of the Early Access launch, that feature will be available. The game also features optional dynamic difficulty, which Stray Kite Studios will need to take a close look at. I found myself overwhelmed and unprepared for the legions of enemy units more times than I care to admit during my preview, and it took at least a half dozen runs to collect enough strands to either get lucky enough or be in fighting shape to actually move past the first few encounters. Speaking of doomed encounters, Wartorn does not have a “surrender” option wherein you’re able to end your run as of that moment and take what rewards you have at that moment. You can abandon your run, but no rewards are available, even if you’re an hour into that run. Another issue I ran into is that between the physics, elemental systems, and friendly fire, it can be very hard to actually use some of the skills and mechanics as intended unless you don’t mind accidentally waterboarding one of your squads. While Wartorn boasts itself as a roguelite, the number of maps you skirmish on, units you fight and can recruit, and events you’ll encounter seem quite limited.
Though Wartorn has quite a road in front of it, their Early Access plans also detail a roadmap, which culminates in a 1.0 launch later this year. Even as I was previewing the game, Stray Kite Studios was patching the game and visibly improving it, so here’s hoping that between the Early Access launch on June 17th and the full launch, Yara and Elani won’t be stuck in a time loop for too long.
Wartorn launches in Early Access on June 17 for a $19.99 price point during launch week ($29.99 normally), and is aiming for a 1.0 launch later this year through Steam and the Epic Games Store.
