Battle Brothers Review

The Game:

Battle Brothers is a turn-based strategy game where you lead a mercenary band in a medieval fantasy world.

After a battle that goes wrong you become the captain of a small mercenary group and lead them in a low magic fantasy world. Your band will face dangers ranging from human bandits all the way to vampires. You will have to build them up from scratch through ways like looting defeated enemies, doing quests for villages or noble houses.

That’s a lot of walking

The game has 2 main parts. The large map where you travel around fighting enemies and doing quests and the battle area where the turn-based combat takes place. The large map is procedurally generated so different playthroughs aren’t usually the same. From there you can go to towns to trade for provisions and equipment for your mercenary group, and recruit new members for your party. Each town has it’s own economy and these are sometimes affected by quests or bandits. Different towns also give different kinds of recruits, so poorer towns usually have farmhands usually while richer ones have knights available. There are also random events while traveling the map. These usually happens depending on the backgrounds of your battle brothers. Some benefit others, some clash causing negative results. It makes traveling around the map more dynamic and less of a boring walk from one place to another.

I have a hoarding problem hehehe

The battle area is also procedurally generated so thinking on your feet is needed to win battles. You can field a maximum of 12 battle brothers at a time. Sadly there isn’t much you can do with your formations so for me, that limits the tactical possibilities for the player. Permadeath is a major part of the game so a bad damage roll can usually end the life of a battle brother quickly if he isn’t equipped well enough. There are a variety of perks and weapons to choose from making it easy for specialization of troops. Though not all troops are created equal, those from more well off backgrounds are usually better suited to combat and are better objectively.

In combat there are a lot of factors that come into play not just hp and damage. There is a morale mechanic in place which can sway the battle for better or worse in a single turn if you luck is good or bad enough. This is complemented by the multiple possible traits of each battle brother. Some traits make them more likely to hit opponents, some less likely to run away, though some traits are negative. These are assigned randomly when you first recruit them. Making the best out of every battle brother is key to surviving this harsh world.

Get this?

I highly recommend this game for fans of tactical games. The game forces you to keep making your battle brothers more efficient after every battle. The art style is not only gorgeous but also functional. It looks simple yet detailed enough that even after playing for a long time it doesn’t get stale watching them act.

One of my favorite parts is that you can customize the name and face of each battle brother. So you can set it as an adventure with your friends, or a walking boy band. Even the design of the different armors looks great as you can see what each person has equipped giving a better sense of immersion.

The music is great in that I don’t have to put anything else on while I am playing this game.

I bought the supporters edition since the developers are active and communicate well with the fans. These kind of developers deserve the support since they’re also survivors of the Steam early access system.

I didn’t mention all the things about the game because I want you to see the rest for yourself since this is a great game from great people. Good job Overhype Studios this game is worth the hype.