Recent reviews by Ais

I bought this game way back in EA when it first came out. For two reasons, 1) I love Northgard and the hybrid lite-4x + RTS style gameplay. 2) Love Dune!

However, i wanted to wait till at least launch to leave proper review, at the time that occurred I was enjoying the game but it felt a bit flat, specifically combat felt bland. As of the newest update that coincides with the first DLC release (House Vernius of Ix) I can confidently say, this game absolutely is top tier.

-=-Pros-=-
- More complex than a standard RTS: it plays more like a real time 4x-lite game. Think something like Sins of a Solar Empire, a bit like Stellaris but less complex, or Shiro's own Northgard.

- 5 victory conditions: all but one can be turned on or off they are as follows. Domination(kill all your enemies, always on),
Hegemony(get to a certain amount before anyone else), Governor(hold charter office for 30 days), Economic(get 50% of CHOAM shares), Assassination(self explanatory)

- Visuals and audio nails the Dune universe: Arrakis somehow isn't boring to look at after hours of gameplay and maps are randomly generated. Of note is this pulls from what some define as the expanded universe, I.e. some of the factions or character names are from either from Frank Herbert's sons work, or inspired by the Villeneuve films.

- 6 distinct factions in the base game: House Atreides, House Harkonnen, Smugglers, Fremen, House Corrino, House Ecaz Each one can be further tweaked at the start of a game by selecting 2 of 4 councilors. These will alter how you will approach victory and the game as a whole, some may make some types of a victory easier than others, or give you a leg up in combat or the spy game. Each faction comes with about 7 unique units, ranging from melee & ranged troopers, some drones, aircraft and even support oriented units, with further few units being mercenaries or generic recruits. Additionally, each faction can unlock mutually exclusive heroes at 10k hegemony, these heroes can further boost different combat units or help refine your play style.

- Conquest/Campaign: This takes the campaign map conquering you may have seen in things like Dawn of War: Dark Crusade, Company of Heroes 3 Italian Campaign, Total War. It's fairly small for now, and not all factions can be played on it, I hope Shiro finds a way to make more unit factions work on it. As you take sectors you can earn buffs that will impact you on future missions, additionally, some missions have modifiers that you won't normally see in skirmish mod. These can definitely lead to some interesting setups and may require you to change up your normal strategy quite a bit.

- multiplayer!

- speed controls: 1x, 1.2x, 1.5x, 2x. as well as pausible

-=-Mixed-=-

- matches can be long even sped up 1-2hours+, again this goes back to its real time 4x-lite status. I personally prefer it but I think it's important to list it so people can be aware that this is 15-25 min RTS matches. Once you get better at the game it will cut down the time for sure, you can save though.

-=-Cons-=-

- no real cons for me, only thing I could think of is if Shiro might be wiling to get a bit crazy and explore some different things in the wider dune universe. While Arrakis is the focus of the novels, other conflicts have been mentioned in the expanded writings and would be kind of neat to see that stuff explored.

Witnessed someone drive an ambulance through the frontline blaring toyko drift over VoIP (both sides can hear it). It caused utter chaos and they ran over more then a few enemies (and likely friendlies).

12/10 would witnessed blitzkrieg ambulance again.

Disclaimer: I'll be honest, the initial week of this games launch was rocky. Huge queues and many people had lots of disconnects. I consider myself fairly lucky that initial had little disconnects but queues were rough. However, the devs busted their asses and got the queues under control. Disconnects are still a problem and I do experience them now but with no queue its tolerable.


That being said, server issues aside this game is fantastic. It oozes style and passion in its art and music design and I look forward to more zones in the future to just hang out in. All the characters have fantastic art design so far and each one feels really distinct even if they share a similar 'class'.

Aside from that, the core gameplay loop is very simple, the game is similar to Warframe for those who've played it and the game could be reduced into a crafting, collecting game. What I mean by that is at the moment the gameplay loop is really about grinding out crafting materials for different weapons, characters or power upgrades. The devs have a roadmap and there are some really cool futures planned down the road like raids and other content that'll be in addition to its core grind.

With that being said, this game is currently pay to play with founders packs. I personally would absolutely recommend trying it at out the base level, and if you enjoy it upgrade your pack to a higher tier one if you so choose. If this is something that you are interested in but not quite sure on, it will go free 2 play sometime next year ~February or so. The current plan is for two seasons of early access, dubbed founder seasons before the game launches.

Now, i did mention some magic words that'll get people worried or interesting and that is seasons, this game will eventually be f2p, currently depending on the level of founders pack you purchase you get the first season paid or premium and in some cases the second season paid or premium. However, something i think that is fantastic, is that if you have paid for a season pass, you will ALWAYS have access to it to be able to unlock everything if you don't have time in a given season.

Aside from seasons the rest of the MTX currently on display is designed around paying to unlock a weapon or character if you rather do that then grind, or cosmetics ranging from weapon charms, character trinkets, skins for characters or weapons and character personas. These do rotate, some faster then others and costs seem largely reasonable. Of note, is at the moment there are no earnable cosmetics in game aside from the weapon skins, this has already been confirmed to be changing in the future.

As it stands the game is in a better spot. It is far from perfect and has room to improve for sure. However, I do enjoy the game enough in the current state to switch my review to positive.

Graphical improvements, a few more maps (still needs more), and some audio tweaks (needs more) have all helped improve the experience.

UPDATE: At this point the games stability and ability to play games consistently has absolutely improved. They have made the MTX system more approachable, so while still not perfect it's less predatory. In the unfortunate reality that MTX are here to stay it's tolerable, i still don't think 'legendary' cosmetics should cost ~ $7.50 usd and be limited per player.

I am flipping my review to positive as I have been consistently playing and enjoying it. I do want proper league play and admin support. Reconnect absolutely needs to be fast tracked, but now that d/c are less common its tolerable.



OLD PRIOR TO STABILITY PATCHES: Game isn't ready, missing core features it should launch with. Reconnect isn't even coming with the first season....

Cosmetic shop works just fine.... but every cosmetic is per player.

Game is a buggy, MTX filled mess and its a shame. The core is great, but blood bowl is a fantastic tt game. The new rules are great, and bb3 does use the new rules, but I cannot in good conscious recommend this at this moment. Maybe in a few months.

Honestly, one of my favorite RTS games, it's charming artstyle and it's VERY lite 4x/turn-based style of exploration makes it for a bit more slow paced. In fact, as you get comfortable you might equate it to glacial. That said, in multiplayer games are much quicker usually.

1.2 is here. The game is still not perfect. No immortal empires yet, however the game is SIGNIFICANTLY better. A few mods to tweak the RoC campaign and you have a solid experience till we finally get 2.0.

Personally, I think the game is worth buying in its current state and I have changed my review accordingly.

I've been a big fan of Shiro since Northgard, still one of my favorite 'casual' rts around. As soon as I heard about Wartales I was excited to say the least.

Firstly, this is EARLY ACCESS, do not buy into this game if you expect a full finished product that won't change. If you don't like early access than wait until the game comes out.

That out of the way, this game has some serious promise, it is already enjoyable in its current state however a few big things to help bring it up would be more immersion like voiced npcs and more customization, which we already know is happening due to the road map.

I would like to see some QoL changes as well, like if I click on a mountain my band of mercenaries should automatically path around or it instead of faceplant. Generally, movement is a tad finicky but mountains/heights where normally you could walk around fairly easily definitely could use some better pathing.

Inventory sorting would also be greatly appreciated!

Absolutely incredible addition to the Total War series. I really hope a lot of the improvements make their way into Warhammer 3.

As a aquarist in RL with 3 saltwater tanks and 1 freshwater i can safely say i adore this game, I just want more fishies!!