A fight with bandits goes south for my party, and one of my crew is killed. They were the first party member to die on our adventure and the most recent to be hired. She was not in the crew for long, and most of the party decried her joining in the first place. They constantly questioned her worth at camp and spoke out against her performance.  But the pack horse seemed to hit it off with her, so when I buried her at the edge of the field near where bandits killed her, her epitaph read, “The Pony Liked Her.” It may have been their only defining feature, but it made for a memorable moment of procedural storytelling, which Wartales excels at.

Think XCOM meets The Lord of the Rings

Wartales is (deep breath) a party-focused turn-based open-world RPG with procedural storytelling and survival elements. While that seems like a lot to take in, Wartales does something many modern RPGs fail to do, properly introduce the player and set them free in the world. While the many elements seem daunting, Wartales smartly drops players right into play after creating their party, immediately allowing them to engage with its systems on their terms. There is no lengthy tutorial, no long-winded story introduction, just you and your party and the open road. Freedom is the name of the game in Wartales, and it tackles the idea with aplomb.

Wartales offers the freedom I have longed for in bigger-budget RPGs like Cyberpunk 2077, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Borderlands, and more. It adheres much closer to the classic CRPGs of old, like the original Fallout but with a focus on exploration and open-world party-driven adventures. Think XCOM meets The Lord of the Rings.

Wartales slowly introduces mechanics as you engage with them. In your first fight? The game provides a simple but effective tutorial that lets you learn the basics without too much handholding. Cooking for your crew? Wartales teaches you the basics of party management and provisions without getting lost in the weeds. The game constantly teaches you new things, new jobs for your party, new abilities to use, new areas to explore, and new ways to engage with your party. It makes for a very satisfying drip feed of new content. This, combined with the addictive loop of exploring the map, collecting resources, fighting, and camping to rest and recover, gives the experience a unique cadence.

Wartales hooks you in the way turn-based 4X games do, where you say to yourself, “One more turn,” and then before you know it, it’s 3 AM. It just lets you play. Once you touch grass with your party, you can go anywhere. See a windmill? Go explore and find the owners to engage in a unique story. See a caravan? Go rob it and sell the goods. Or head to town to get mercenary contracts, engage with the townsfolk, and hire new party members. The game genuinely leaves the adventure up to the player and is much stronger for it. Storytelling is brief but effective, characters rarely engage in more than a few lines of dialogue, but the quests still retain solid arcs and exciting choices that shape your party and the world around you. Wartales does its best to let you play and build your party as you see fit and dictate the pacing of the adventure itself. There are no grand conspiracies or epic world-ending threats; you are just another mercenary group trying to make their way in a dark, medieval low-fantasy world, and Wartales nails that.

Combat in Wartales is deceptively simple. You fight with your party on small maps where you can move along square tiles. You engage with enemies on the overworld map and move into turn-based combat like many of Wartales contemporaries. Unlike something like XCOM, there is no cover for a medieval melee, so Wartales eschews the idea of misses and percentages. Every hit will hit and do the same base amount of damage outside the rare critical. On top of this, the turn order is clearly displayed, so you know what enemy will be attacking and when, and the order is evenly distributed between you and the enemy. So, the larger your party, the more moves you can make.

Wartales hooks you in the way turn-based 4X games do, where you say to yourself, “One more turn,” and then before you know it, it’s 3 AM.

There are many weapon types, moves, and status effects, but generally, characters can move a little bit and engage in an attack and some support abilities per turn; the Valor Point system governs this. Valor Points are gained in battle and during resting periods at camp and are a limited currency that allows you to use your best moves in combat. It limits you from spamming powerful attacks, and you can use party members to earn Valor Points mid-fight, allowing you to turn the tide. Combat can sometimes feel a little workmanlike, lacking the flair of something like Marvel’s Midnight Suns or Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate. Still, when you do see a unique finisher animation, it is satisfying every time.

That is the best way to describe Wartales. Workmanlike. The individual systems are simple enough and lack flair, but together they make a uniquely compelling experience. Combat alone isn’t particularly incredible, but it becomes genuinely compelling when combined with the survival elements, the ability to capture beasts and enemies, the unique abilities of your party, and the stakes involved. The same goes for cooking, wood chopping, blacksmithing, etc. All of these are individually simple and easy to digest, but it is quite the meal when dumped into the delicious stew that is the Wartales sandbox.

That isn’t to say Wartales is without beauty. While many of its elements feel less flashy, the vibes are immaculate. The open-world map has a lovely palette of browns and greens and occasional snowy mountains. Exploring it with your party feels like reliving those sweeping shots of The Fellowship running through New Zealand. Across the land, you’ll be soothed by a quiet but pleasant soundtrack that properly fits the medieval aesthetic. It is suitably stripped back, but I found combat music to be especially repetitive, as there seem to be only a few tracks that repeat consistently. Visually Wartales won’t stun, but it has a visual uniqueness that will make it instantly recognizable.

The best part of Wartales is building your own story. Characters rarely have more than a few lines of dialogue, but quests will still build into meaningful stories with proper choices that let your party dictate the outcome. Do you want to rescue the refugees and restructure society with rebellion? Or do you want to uphold order and work with the local guard to expel the refugees? The game gives you a lot of morally grey choices without showing their hand. You can live as merchants, thieves, bandits, mercenaries, and more. Wartales feels designed to create unique player experiences, and it does so with solid mechanics, storytelling, world-building, and party management.

The best part of Wartales is building your own story.

Wartales surprised me. It is a rare game that lets you play without getting in the way. Within minutes you will be out in the world, building your party and writing your story. That is something to be cherished in a world full of games that hold your hand to a painful degree or RPGs that take ten to twenty hours just to get to the meat of things. Wartales knows how to let players explore and have fun and doesn’t actively try to stop you from doing so, which is, unfortunately, all too rare these days. If you want a game that respects your time, look no further than Wartales.

Pros:

• Procedural storytelling makes every experience unique.

• Mechanically simple and satisfying without being overwhelming.

• Lack of handholding.

• Simple but aesthetically pleasing visuals.

Cons:

• Repetitive music.

• Systems that don’t stand out on their own.

• Can be very slow at times.

8.5/10