Battle Brothers

Ever wondered why the wolves howl at the moon? Well, that's because of this game. It has such good replayability, writing, soundtrack and tactical depth that even the wolves play it, but it's RNG will drive you insane. There are basically two ways to play it.

You savescum all day every day like the little b you are. Orc berserker gets to you without getting a scratch and one-slaps your merc? Reload. Hired someone with terrible aptitudes? Reload. A battle started with your team in a pit while all enemy archers chuckle smugly from above? Believe it or not - reload.

You develop a mental disorder, which makes you play through all the nonsense on ironman. Then you ask your mistress to flog you every time your mercs get hit and start over. And over. Andoverandoverandoverandover again.

Great hidden gem of a game formed by the Frankenstein child of Mount & Blade and Darkest Dungeon. Very challenging and unforgiving on the hardest difficulty.

Looks simple on the surface but there's a good deal of depth to the mechanics. You attempt to build a squad of mercs (or "brothers") and travel around the world map completing quests for experience and gold similar to M&B. Much like DD, you can't get too attached to your brothers as no matter how well you prepare there's always the chance of some RNG killing you. But this makes the successes feel much sweeter.

It can be frustrating at times - If you do get your entire squad wiped in a single battle, you do have the option to retry. However, the fact that if you are improperly prepared you stand no real chance makes this game feel a bit "roguelike" as once you're dead you're pretty much just finished. If you don't like that, make sure to save the game regularly as you only get one autosave which is right before the battle.

There are a few minor issues mostly around pathfinding on the world map and the retreat button sometimes screwing you over. I also wish the RPG mechanics were more prevalant, as most brothers start off completely useless at everything regardless of their background. For example, if he's a ranger I want him to start off good at archery, but new hires are very bad and need babysitting to level up a few times before they can do anything.

There are also a lot of mods available although I haven't dived into that much yet.

Overall a strong recommend if you're into this sort of game. I had been looking for a squad-based RPG after getting bored of M&B and this one scratched that itch for me.

After 300+ hours I am still awful at this game but somehow I keep coming back. Getting ass blasted over and over in the first few weeks of game time makes that run where you manage to snowball into a group of max level beasts taking down all comers all the sweeter. 10/10 recommend.

Great game, amazing soundtrack. If you are a fan of the genre, this is a must play in my eyes.

Prior to playing I wasn't sure if I would the art style too much, but after playing the game I have to say it is one of my favorite parts of the game. Even though the game is 2D, the combat feels visceral. Every tiny decision feels impactful and the game forces you to make these decisions constantly. When you make a bad move, the game punishes you. And when you lose a bro, you feel it. I feel this weight may be off putting to some, but i feel that the painful losses do make for some very glorious feeling wins.

There is a steep learning curve and the game does not hold your hand. While the game does give a lot of information to you through tooltips and stats pages, many of the games lessons must be learned through trial and error. It is rage inducing at times and losses can feel catastrophic, but I always end up coming back for more.

The soundtrack fits the game perfectly. I have the songs stuck in my head even when not playing. The soundtrack even makes good background / ambience music for tabletop games in my opinion.

There is an immense amount of content in the base game / DLCs and the developers have released numerous free content updates with the most recent being a month prior to my review and 8 years after game release. Also, if you ever do run out of content and want more there is an extremely active and devoted modding community for this game. When it comes to money spent vs amount of content available, I feel that the game offers tremendous value, especially when on sale.

This is easily the GOAT of the genre for me

Like all the best strategy games, the rules are simple, but the variations are complex. If turn based tactical combat is your thing, you;re in for a treat.

This game is like a hot ex girlfriend. It will rip your heart open but keep you going back for more

There are a lot of good things i can say about the game. If you enjoy a strategical challenge, this game is for you. It will hurt you a lot, but if you're strong enough and don't abandon it, you will come out victorious. That is, unless you consider yourself good enough to play ironman mode, meaning you only get one save that might be miraculously lost at any point, 2 hours in or 200 hours in. Neither the game nor the developers will care. Accept it.

Neither the gameplay nor the Storytelling is the reason for my negative review. Both being so good is the reason why im so angry over a bug ruining both my ironman runs I've had in 37 hours. My perfect description of Battle Brothers is "beautifully hard". I've had many more hours in it on my other PC, as well as a 300 day ironman run. Slowly you get better at being a leader of your Brothers, and the fights that used to seem impossible on many levels are actually quite the opposite; progressively, by yourself, you learn to manage the team better, make better world map decisions, better battle decisions, paying attention to things you never even thought of in the first 20 hours of playing. The list goes on. And this is what made the game so addictive for me.

But as of now, i am furious. My disappointment is immeasurable, and my MONTH is ruined. The same bug appeared two times on my two ironman campaigns on steam; and ruined both singular saves. Described briefly, the textures of objects (Trees, Boulders etc.) went rainbow style at a start of a random battle and turned into colorful figures like its a Picasso painting. Then the games crashes, and the save is corrupted. Getting a corrupted ironman save means: YOU ARE ******. It means that I've lost all the progress I've had in 37 hours. Twice.

Losing the first save hurt, but i reported the problem per mail to the Devs and was determined to continue playing until im satisfied. After losing the first save i, to my own surprise, got the second one far. Seeing my bros I've known for so long that have gone through some **** all in the heaviest pieces of armor, having gotten some reasonably good famed items and my roster now being almost fully maxed out is the reason i love this game. Next thing you know the texture and crash bug happened again, and I've lost it all.

Thing is, unless you love gambling, you just shouldn't play the game on ironman mode, since every hour you put in there might as well be the same as an hour completely wasted. And sadly, that wasted hour wouldn't be "wasted" after you rightfully lose your campaign in a glorious battle, but rather actually wasted to a computer bug overseen by the Devs.

To my bug in particular, after searching for a miracle for hours, i accepted that there is no fix, and i highly doubt I'll get some sort of help from Overhype Studios at this point. They definitely have something better to do than to be separately helping each person who has lost their ironman mode campaign, all to different errors. I saw a single person on the forum with a similar problem with the textures; a user's response was that it might be incompatibility between the latest AMD drivers and the game on Steam. So there you go, if you have AMD drivers, think twice about buying the game, i guess.

I wish i could leave a positive review, but i cant after being done worse than a dry steak. No game until now has forced a response out of me like this, but this experience was so frustrating that i cant help but let people unfamiliar with Battle Brothers know what surprise the game comes with.

Don't play ironman mode. Worst mistake of my life.

For me this game is a dark horse for one of the best games on Steam.

The price - it might seem pricey at first, however I got over 100 hours of enjoyment and relaxation from this - so probably worth it.

The mods - extra content made this game fun. It is well thought through, and not money grabbing gimmick. The game is simple to get and calm and enjoyable.

None of them are actual brothers. Fantastic game.

I am still new to this game that i know I will eventually have 100s of hours on. I slept on this thing with it on my wiishlist for way too long. It is everything I wanted from the game and more. Incredible sandbox style ludo narrative overlay on an incredibly deep tactical experience. Truly unlimited gameplay possibilities. Unbelievably made by a solo dev ( I hope he made all the money in the world). A true tactical masterpiece.

Best game to crashout and save scum to. Good game.

good choice for people wanting difficult but rewarding games. steep learning curve but the first time you last more than a week or two in game you feel like you can conquer the world and then you fight a hexe and lose half your starting lineup. 10/10

truly a A tier game, its brutal and relentless, poses a challenge to a casual gamer just as much as it does to a seasoned gamer, mod community has a ways to go but it has potential. only thing stopping this game from being S tier is depth, if the game added guilds and other mercenary factions etc and maybe implemented a "hideout/homebase" feature itd be perfect.

This is one of the only games that I play - absolutely love, develop my band, craft my own narrative - and then eventually uninstall to play something else.

Months later, I re-install it, fall in love again, and have an absolute blast.

Just buy wartales, this game is missing 95% of your hit rolls and getting one tapped by every enemy. Or straight up fighting impossible odds at start just trying to find a mission.

Fantastically difficult and strategic, also incredibly unforgiving of mistakes in the best ways. When ya win you feel like you earned it, and when you lose (outside of getting chased down by a better force or engaging in a harder contract with an unknown battle) you can usually learn from it and succeed next time. Good modding scene too.

One of the best and most in depth tactics game I've ever played. Challenging but fair, My only wish is for a bigger map and more out-of-combat options.

good game, and more thing to do with mod, always came back after sometime

I was on the fence because this game is UGLY the characters DO NOT LOOK GREAT.

but WOW this game is INCREDIBLE. if you are judging it purely for the aesthetics, PLEASE play it. it's SO GOOD.
many strategy games force the player to take action because of like, a built in timer or something in a mission.

imagine me being FLOORED at the fact that i was told to take down a bandit camp at the top of a hill,
and the bandits WOULD NOT MOVE from that hill until they ran out of ammo.
ive played a LOT of xcom 2 and sometimes the ai would just give up on an advantageous position for literally no reason.

my only complaint is that i love longswords make the longsword better that's all. give it riposte or something, that makes sense for a longsword. okay thanks bye love you.

This game is not for everyone, especially if you want to play iron man, not to cheat. You have to aware that you can loose dozens of hours of play in two minutes. But somehow this is a part of the drill. Personally, i love the game mechanics and the combat, but you have to have nerves of steel for it. Otherwise you need to save scum.

Excellent game, love the challenge the game presents. I also love the devs are still updating the game with content after all these years.

Very fun game and always challenging. The developers had originally said they had stopped supporting it but have since returned to it, and it makes me excited for the potential of additional content.

I've been playing this game for years and I keep coming back to it. It is surprisingly gritty and actually stimulates my adult imagination with the roleplay aspects of the game, which is very surprising.

I initially played to try to be the best but now I play to be the most fun, which sometimes means having weaker mercs but they can do more stuff in a fight.

I recommend this for people who like single player turn-based tactical RPGs with roguelike stakes.

I would not recommend this for people who like fast paced action heavy games.

Addictive gameplay. Can't stop going on just one more run in ironman mode.

Battle Brothers: I Brought a Baguette to a Swordfight (And Regret Everything)

I thought I was ready.
Mercenary life? Strategy? Grit?
Please.
I adjusted my scarf, lit a cigarette, and marched into battle like a man who believed in miracles.

Mistake number one.

[hr]

I marched out with a soggy baguette and good intentions.
I returned with nothing but scars and the vague scent of public humiliation.

[hr]

The Experience:

Maybe I'm soft.
Maybe I need dopamine pings and victory jingles.
But this game?
This game kicked me down a muddy hill, called me a slur, and charged me full price for the experience.

[hr]

The Graphics:

Everyone looks like a rotten thumb nailed to a popsicle stick.
Gritty?
Sure.
If you define "gritty" as "faces you'd expect to find floating in the harbor."

[hr]

Final Thoughts:

It’s brutal.
It’s joyless.
It’s a slow-motion car crash where you pay extra to watch your own funeral.

I adjusted my scarf, took one last drag of my cigarette, muttered "c’est la mort," —
and deleted the game without even looking back.

Some battles you fight.
Some battles you walk away from because life’s too short for thumb-men and broken dreams.

[hr]

• Difficulty: Feels like a tax audit during an earthquake.
  
• Graphics: Potatoes with PTSD.
  
[*]Reviewer: Left the battlefield for a bakery and never returned.

👎 Not Recommended

Fantastic game. Developers STILL release content for free. One of the few gaming companies that deserve your money. Highly recommend.

I feel like my opinion on the game tends to be more along the lines of "It's mostly a meh", but I'm giving a negative review because there are so many little annoyances that add up and make me want to slam my head against my desk.

My biggest problem is that in my opinion losing just isn't "fun" in this game, it just means several hours of tedium grinding up new units, and especially in late game where the enemies are much stronger it means you can have borderline useless units in your party that you have to baby which I just find tedious.

Even if you prepare by having some reserve units that are at least somewhat levelled and can just slot in to replace fallen units, it can still take hours to get back to the same point you were at. The reason I find it so frustrating is because its an rng game, and an important unit can die no matter how well you position or prepare, because if you just get a string of bad luck, that's it.

It's compounded by bugs or infuriating mechanics in the game, for example the overmap pathfinding is just plain bad, if you're being chased by a stronger party you have to micromanage practically each step because sometimes the ai will just decide to do a hard right or left to try reach a road or piece of flat land that's close by because it would technically reduce the amount of time you would need to reach wherever you told them to go, but in doing so they end up running right into the enemy you were trying to avoid.

All well and good you think, I'll just retreat from the battle, but wait you're in a mountain map, and you spawned in the low ground and so the enemy can just rain arrows down on you as you try flee, ok, no problem, I have shields on my melee units and good ranged defence on my own ranged units, so I should be able to retreat with only a few wounds, oh one of my stronger units just died because they got hit 4 times in a row by 30% crossbow bolts, alright, well I guess I'll go fuck myself.

Also don't make the mistake of using the retreat button in the menu because it's impressively consistent at getting your units killed, which means yes you will need to micro manage your retreat which just adds to the tedium I feel playing this game.

Similar things happen in forest maps where you can just be fully surrounded, though I find that its much more survivable because the enemies tend to be spread out and you can *usually* make it out without a unit dying.

Other things like bugs where the end battle screen gets stuck and you can't click "run them down" or "it's over" so you're stuck until you restart the game and now have to hope the battle goes as well as it did last time, or maybe you got a random crash even though you're playing vanilla on a game that came out 8 years ago.

And yes you can save scum to avoid situations that feel unfair. I'm also aware I can turn the difficulty down or download any number of mods that make the game easier, but my view is just that I shouldn't feel forced to save scum or add mods to have the game "play fair".

There's also legendary locations which honestly you really need meta knowledge before going into otherwise the odds are that you're going to completely wipe, but I'm more understanding about that just cause that's the gimmick, legendary location, supposed to be unfair and what not.

Overall the game can be fun, and there's moments where I genuinely have a blast playing, but I honestly find myself more and more closing the game in a worse mood than when I opened it.

Again this is just my opinion and there's going to be stuff I haven't mentioned because i'm writing this as a stream of consciousness and this isn't supposed to be an in-depth critique, just my quick overall thoughts. There are plenty of good things about the game that other reviews have pointed out but this is just how I feel about the game after a few hundred hours.

Indie Sandbox Tactical RPG at its FINEST! If you like anything like Sid Meier's Pirates, Starsector or Mount & Blade look no further, this is a MUST play! I just started playing in 2025 and this game has blown my mind!

Be warned, Battle Brothers is tough as nails, prepare to get wrecked if you think it's gonna hold your hand, though there are various difficulty options you can play with.

Graphics are beautiful 2d, i love the art style! Music tracks are masterpieces and sound fx/ambience are all very good.

Battle Brothers feels like it has been made by developers that actually wanted to make a good game rather than only thinking about $$$ or pushing stupid agendas. It's a ''modern'' game but has the spirit and soul like it was made back in the 90's or early 00's.

Medieval Chess with depth fitting for modern age. A must for those who enjoy turn based hardcore battlers.

Great music, great writing and good mechanics. Fairly challenging even on the easier difficulty levels, and it really rewards knowledge of the mechanics - choosing the right equipment and troops for the enemy you are encountering is crucial. DLCs are all great too! Lots of content - there's still some fights I haven't even attempted yet with 2k+ hours played...

One of my all time favourites.

Great game mechanics, story telling and Music/Sounds.
An all-around superb experience.

Fun tactical battle sandbox, spiced with some cool enemies and fun writing. 5/5

difficult for the sake of being difficult. strategy/tactical games are my bread & butter but even on the easiest diffficulties your characters will get one shot even if you do everything absolutely perfectly. you'd probably like this game if you enjoy mix-maxing games to their ABSOLUTE limit cause it seems like thats the only way to progress in this game, and even then you're still prooobably gonna get 1shot the second you enter combat lmao



good idea, poor execution with weird RNG combat
3/10

This is one of the best underrated gems that you will ever find, provided you have the time and patience to learn its ins and outs. It has great story telling, many events that are character specific, many great battles, skirmishes, unlikely allies and monsters! Overall a really great experience that can be frustrating at times, especially if you're newer, so I recommend playing on beginner difficulty the first few tens of hours, especially if you're not used to these types of rather unforgiving but highly rewarding games. I would honestly hope for either a sequel or more content for this game because the developers have struck gold.

Game launches to white screen. I have tried all the fixes but was unable to fix the issue. Others are having the same issue with no fix from Devs.

Excellent indie title. A must if you love turn based tactics games, optimization, and brutal combat.

I had higher expectations from this game honestly. But it's still a good game.
I feel like we could have had less characters that were more unique, or being able to have more than 12 characters in the field, but this way I feel I am not satisfied with how many people I am able to use, neither do i feel the 12 I have are particularly interesting or unique.

I like this game and it is so good that other games are referred to as a battle brothers type of game. However, man do I suck at this game. I die so frequently, not just one guy but the whole team. I still love it though.

Game is hard at start but gets fun later

the best turn based mercernary rpg management game out there nocap

What a phenomenal game. I keep looking for other games to scratch the itch Battle Brothers has given me but honestly it's hard to find something this well-written, this immersive (through its music, pacing, general vibe), and this entertaining.

At first, the art style put me off. I thought it was stupid that they only show the upper half of every character (like pudgy little chess pieces). It grew on me really quickly, though, and now I love it. Especially because there's really great art on those pudgy little chess pieces and throughout the game in general.

Combat might seem simple at first but it's actually got a surprising amount of depth. And the sound design really helps everything feel crunchy and satisfying - when you see an enemy go down in one hit it's extremely satisfying.

I wish the game had better defined bro personalities so I could get even more attached to my bros than I already am (Glad to see the devs are going for handwritten characters for their new game).

Once again, a phenomenal game and, in my opinion, I think it might be the best mercenary company game out there.

10/10 I love my bros

It took around 10 hours for me to fully connect with the core game-play loop, and It all ended a bit abruptly at the 40hr mark, but it was an incredibly rewarding experience while it lasted. There's tons more content to explore though, of course. Overall, one of the best video games I've ever played, and I remember the ZX Spectrum.

Play at beginner difficulty to learn the rules. It is actually fun and less frustrating to play at beginner difficulty. You will still lose people at this difficulty, so the challenge is still there, but you are more likely to be able to "win" the game and enjoy the process of playing it.

Not sure if I should be mad or glad that I took so long to try this game. Battle Brothers is addicting as f***. A good example of not to judge a book by its cover. Within the first five hours of this game, I ended up buying all the DLCs because I don't want to be missing anything when I explore this new world with my Band Of Poachers. I hate when I lose my men especially when I had them since the start but Dietmar, The Chickensh** was not meant to live forever so eventually I learned to accept these losses and just try to improve with each experience. Highly recommend.

A very fun game, that puts as much importance on management as it does strategy. Having your company armed properly and trained to fill specialized roles is as important as making intelligent strategic choices in combat. The day to day can really make or break your company in a battle as much as making the right or wrong choices during. That said sometimes you're just gonna die.
This is a game best played knowing you're going to lose. Even with only nearly 20 hours and only managing easy and normal campaigns, I've seen how quickly things can go to shit both on and off the battlefield. Even my best run thus far averages one dead company member every week, and honestly? It's kind of the fun of it.

I want to like this game, I really do, but the amount of micromanaging and extreme difficulty curve make this game unbearable for most of the time. I enjoy a challenge, but this game requires managing so many elements and there is always the specter of a single mistake or unlucky roll wiping your party. The excitement of the successes you will have is massively outweighed by the amount of work this game requires. The combat feels unbalanced, the slog of waiting as your party laboriously traverses the map as it hemorrhages resources with your characters becoming increasingly miserable so you can arbitrage some found armor or goods is needlessly and painfully grindy. I can't help but wonder if the positive reviews come from the kind of player who will min-max a grinding joyless game to prove they can, and maybe that is you, but this game is simply not fun and needlessly difficult.

It takes a little time and effort to be able to fight and not getting frustrated, but it is whorth it.
Great game, great mechanics.

Like a 2D bannerlord but with its own frustrations. I like the concept and the overall game play, roam around, get contracts, rally your bros and fight things, but it takes so long to train up some competent brothers.

I have my main archer up on a cliff with height advantage, with perks, chance is 80% and.... it whiffs. Not only that, it seems everyone's got shields anyway so often the archer is useless. It also doesn't help that it feels like every enemy has more defence & attack accuracy than your poor peasant mercenaries.

I think I'm too old to have the patience to grind through the mechanics. Yes, get some shields, use spearwall, stick some dudes with polearms in the back of course, but it's just not that fun grinding through battle after battle hoping the dice rolls in your favor.

If you want a gritty, punishing and frustrating game, then this is it for you. I'm just not sure it feels all that tactical.

I can't tell if this game is just communicating very poorly with what I should do or if it's just a bad game.

If you feel like engaging enemies at the correct position or hoping that animals run into your spears over and over is considered tactical then I guess this might be the game for you.

The biggest problem is that a 1 skull mission can be anything from lowly bandits that don't do shit to monsters that one shot your band of 12 equipped guys. You can do a three skull mission for 2k gold and not fight at all, while dying to a mission that would give you 300 on completion.

I'm sure you should just play it safe and only take the easy ones, but it's a grind and almost nothing prevents a streak of bad luck taking one of your trained guys down. It's very much like Darkest Dungeon 1 in that way. Very tedious gameplay loop.

The dull character progression was improved by mods (unfortunately no workshop integration), but got nuked by a recent update that didn't add much content :(

Great game very replayable hope there is more content in the future!

Oh man. I was looking for a turn base tactical RPG like FF tactics but ended up buying this one and its worth every penny. For starter. Its like Mount and Blade and Heroes III Might & Magic made something and this is the gem they created. You get to create mercenaries and take contracts and maybe later on join a faction. if you love reading like I do. You get to know their story. I almost scream when one of favorite merc got almost killed by a direwolf luckily he evaded the death blow. This game is got me frustrated in a good way. Where to go to find more contracts, weapons, supply and everything. Keeping my mercs paid and alive while taking out dangerous quest. Im looking forward when the day I fully build, equip and make my mercs famous throughout the kingdom.