Wartales (PC) Preview

The gaming industry has been bouncing back with the announcements of so many great titles such as Starfield, Halo Infinite, Zelda Breath of the Wild 2, and so many more. It’s easy to get swept up in all the announcements, but that’s why dry periods are so important.

It’s important that we don’t let these giants overshadow great titles from smaller studios. After all, talent blooms best in a restricted environment. Studio Shiro, responsible for the steam success, Northgard, is planning to release another title before the end of 2021.

Wartales is still in early development (Alpha), surprisingly. However, Shiro Studios plans to release before the end of the year according to their main site. It is an incredibly beautiful game, and I have played roughly 30+hours during the alpha period. As a result, I have some thoughts on it.

Of course, due to the state of the game, I will not be too critical. However, I will point out some issues that MUST be fixed prior to release. There will be no narrative spoilers ahead as the game played thus far lacked any dialogue, so let’s dive in.

Before you can play the game, you must choose from two backstories. The first option is being born of a merchant and starting with additional gold. The second option is being born of a soldier and starting with additional influence. You get about 30 points for either choice.

Influence seems to be a measure of renown or coercion with AI. The best example of this I could find was in an iron mine not far from the start location. You come across a foreman you must coerce to allow you in. I am curious to see how this might develop further.

Then, there is the concept of knowledge, which is a measure of experience for your mercenary group. It grants you skills out of combat such as sprinting, and recipes for crafting and cooking. Each skill/recipe would cost only one knowledge point. This is the same amount of points earned for each knowledge level-up.

Outside of knowledge level-ups for your whole party, there are also level-ups for your individual characters. Each level-up grants you an attribute point to increase either strength, dexterity, constitution, intelligence, wisdom, or charisma.

In Wartales, there are also classes that are pre-selected for all characters in the alpha. These classes are based on their weapon proficiencies, such as archers, spearmen, swordsmen, two-handed swordsmen, etc. However, there are no magic users in the game.

This secular leveling system and the classes combined, enable a deep diversity of character building. That’s before you include gear stats and crafting. Wartales is quickly proving to be an RPG fan’s wet dream.

As a turn-based strategy game, you lead a gritty band of mercs on quests. In the alpha, quests were only attainable from town. I am sure though that the finished game will have more quest-givers. Though at the time, these quests consisted only of hunting down criminals and other merc bands.

Of course, this was the best way to gain experience and test the game’s combat system. In the initial set-up, you can arrange your forces via highlighted squares in the battle area. More forces mean more squares available and thus more options. This is where class roles come into play. You will start the game with a total of four characters, one of each of the four classes (typically excluding spearmen).

Your character with a two-handed sword can attack and hit two targets. However, the blade doesn’t discriminate, so be mindful of that. When paired with the rogue it can quickly become either deadly or foolish. I also tend to keep my archer behind my sword and shield, who can double his damage resistance for three turns. Meanwhile, the archer continues to weaken enemies not engaged with him.

The gameplay strategy is crucial, not only in combat but out of it as well. Between battles, you’ll have to manage repair kits and medicine as your troops are likely to take damage. These can be crafted or bought in the village.

Between combat and the village, you’ll have to keep an eye on your party’s energy levels, pay, and food reserves. Should you run low on money your party’s morale will drop until someone deserts your group.

Desertion is preferable to starvation, which will happen if you run out of food, obviously. These things are easy to manage with four people in the troupe, but you can hire more in the village.

With each additional merc, you’ll have an extra mouth to feed and additional pockets to fill. This forces you to take on more tasks while also exhausting your party faster and using up all your food. At most, my largest party got up to seven people before it became a problem.

Outside of combat, there are benefits to taking on so many people. The number one benefit is professions. Each character can hold one profession at a time. Should they change their profession, all experience for the current profession will be lost. I hope that they fix this if it isn’t intentional, but it might be a way to urge players to get larger groups.

Let us focus on the positive, though, that’s another means of leveling up and thereby creating the perfect character. It also stacks with your knowledge level so you can unlock greater recipes. Once you finish a new recipe you discover another, though it still has to be earned with knowledge, of course.

Some skills such as mining and smithing have an interactive reticle or chime that determines the quality of the fruits of your labor. A higher skill level would grant a higher margin of error to get a perfect hit, such as for smithing. Perfect hits let make exceptional gear which you can then sell away and gather the wages for your growing army.

Of course, this also grants you the opportunity to specialize in a smaller group and take down enemies with quality rather than quantity. Generally, I would recommend this option by far, as the party’s pay and meal consumption remain the same, but effectiveness multiplies. Though, some items are not usable by any characters, currently.

Now, these are some of the great things about the game and I’m sure that only more features will come. However, it’s not without its issues and if Shiro Studios plans to release before the end of 2021 then they seriously need to fix some things.

The number one issue at present is character agency on resources and towns. Critical areas like the main town are difficult to enter. This becomes an exaggerated problem when you consider the fact that movement and time spent on the world map exhausts your party. This will continue until you are prompted to make camp and eventually slow to a full stop.

An issue like this isn’t rare for an alpha game. However, with such a short window it is likely that we will be looking at a Spring 2022 release date or later. Personally, I am in support of Shiro Studios taking all the time they need to complete this game. Currently, their website is vague on details. However, I am hopeful for an exciting and immersive narrative. The narrative is described as being set in a world recovering from “an unprecedented plague” that destroyed a supposedly great Edoran Empire.

Any RPG adventurer worth their rocks will know this means three things: dungeons, dungeons, and more dungeons. At the very least, we can know for certain that the combat development in this game will be amazing. This is especially the case if we eventually face off against massive groups and armies. The game still has a ways to go, but you can try it for yourself on steam. Check out the demo and if you like it, then consider playing the Early Access up to release.