Welcome to our review of War Theatre: Blood of Winter, another game from the War Theatre series and it is more of the same ol’…
From the developers of War Theatre comes the next series installment, Blood of Winter. In this free-to-start turn-based strategy RPG, return to Kasalli, where the Endless War continues to rage and powerful new forces converge to determine the fate of the country. Take on players worldwide with one of seven unique hero characters while completing quests to unlock new perks and gain an edge on your competitors.
Multiplayer is free to play, while single-player campaigns are paid DLC, along with the ability to play with any hero.
When I said it was more of the same old, I meant it was more of the same beautiful games but crappy in-game value. This Blood of Winter game is a glorified tactical game where you perform no unexpected attacks at all. Aside from maybe hidden enemies, the ones that hide in forests, … there is very little new to the genre. Sure, it looks amazing, like all of these War Theatre games do, but purely speaking contents, they are usually empty boxes and it needs to be said.
This is a tactical game, so you start off by learning the basics, Moving your military fighters from one place to the next, the ability to capture towns, earn money, and even recruit more fighters. All through basic menus and if it was not for the great graphics, this would be how you played this genre like 10+ years ago. Thankfully the controls are easy to use and not cluttered unlike some of the newer tactical games…
Once you get to the end of the tutorial, you already encountered 2 idiocies in basic game design. One, you do not finish the fight in the tutorial, you just learn what is needed and move on. I do love me a first victory when playing and this was just an utter disappointment. Not really something important, but it just irked me that it had this “Let’s move on” policy.
The second thing you will hate, the fact that there is overlaying text, making the instructions hard to read and I really mean hard. In the background, you could buy/hire a new fighter to join your cause, but it was being overlaid (text on top of other text) and it was so damn frustrating, it made me want to quit the game at that point already. I have seen my fair share of War Theatre games, actually spending real-life money on them before.
And that leads me to my next point, this is a semi-free game. If you can do the dance with a friend, go ahead and tango, but if you are alone, this becomes a paid game. I would strongly recommend finding a friend to try it out and then see if this is a game for you or not. Personally, I think it is a crappy approach to a genre that has hundreds of better titles out there, maybe the free aspect is enough to get some attention, but not for me.
In conclusion, I disliked this game so much. It felt like they took a game from 10+ years ago, made it very pretty, and then I just let it go…
