War Tells Its Tale 

Wartales is a turn-based strategy RPG that places you as the leader of a band of mercenaries in search of gold and glory. Exploring a vast world full of life, the game will show you the pains and intrigues of the dark ages. Wisdom will be your greatest ally to survive where death is as commonplace as daylight. 

Released on April 12, 2023, Wartales is available on Steam. 



The Tale of the Mercenaries

Wartales is a non-linear progression game, whose focus centers on the actions and options available to the player. In a world overrun by war and intrigue, it will be up to us to understand our place in the world. Whether as a vigilante, an outlaw, or just a villager in search of a better life, Wartales will give us the tools to follow our own course in a sad and hopeless medieval world. 

The game will tell us several stories along the way, and they are the ones that give us context about the world. Unlike the more complex narratives, Wartales puts us in touch with the stories of simple people who try to survive at any cost in this world. We will experience the difficulties of villagers who suffer from food shortages, religious beliefs, and traditions that mask conflicts over land, problems with thieves, and other issues that are marked much of the time. 

To deal with them, the game introduces us to a complex and meaningful system of choices, which generates repercussions in our journey. The consequences can be purely narrative, impacting the course of the story, or impact our gameplay, such as loss of prestige or allies. 

These stories can be found in our explorations around the world or in the big cities, through the taverns. There we will find work contracts, local histories, and other information that can help us better explore the territories. 



But the most interesting narrative point for me was in building our relationship with our band of mercenaries. They are the ones we need to relate to if we want a strong group that can survive in such a mean and brutal world. To do this we need to understand who they are, and what their ambitions and expectations are so that we can keep the group together and satisfied. For this, sometimes we will need to give up gold, or food. Other times a harder and more energetic position will be necessary to show who the real leader of the group is.

Wartales also puts on a show in terms of setting. With a medieval world so well constructed, it is quite pleasant to explore and imagine yourself being part of that context. With a game where fantasy leaves the fantastic to embrace the political, Wartales puts us in a world that requires maturity, especially to connect with the story and the denser style of play. With a slower progression than is usual in the genre, the game makes a point of placing us in the environment as just another individual rather than as someone important. But this does not mean that we will be just anyone, since our attitudes transform the way we are perceived in the territories, for better or for worse.

Who would you be in a ruthless and decadent world?

Unity is the basis of strength, and solidarity is the foundation of victory

Without the gang, you are nobody. In Wartales, your group will define if and how you will progress. Building good relations and keeping your group well-prepared will give you many advantages, whether on the battlefield or in more intimate intrigues. Taking care of your mercenaries means listening to their needs and fears, healing their wounds, repairing their equipment, feeding them, and keeping them paid. Much more than managing human resources, in Wartales your role is one of leadership. And good leadership brings results.

The game will put you in an open world and free of directions. Intuitively, you will build your own trails and follow the paths that you think are right. In your campaign, you will meet people willing to go on a journey with you, either for gold or for fear of their own lives. Having them in your group doesn't mean that you are stronger or more protected, but that there is someone who believes that you are doing the right thing. So do it.



Wartales pays well to those players who manage their resources correctly. So pay attention to the demands for food and the wages of your mercenaries. Take their complaints and rebuke those who think they know what they are doing. If you must, expel unprepared individuals, but never forget that they are unique. So every goodbye, in peace or war, is forever. 

To keep morale positive, it is essential to collect available resources in the scenarios, such as metals, plants, and food. It is with these that we can profit, build equipment and improvements, and feed our troops. 

In addition, these resources serve as a way to improve our camp, which serves as a resting place for our travels, and as a place for the administration of our troops. Our mercenaries can also specialize in certain professions that add greatly to the gameplay of Wartales. They can be fishermen, cooks, alchemists, miners, thieves, bards, and others. Each of these professions has a unique skill set that adds significantly to the gameplay.

As we progress in our exploration and narrative, we receive knowledge points that can be used for new skills for our gang, such as lower costs for equipment maintenance and wages, as well as combat and survival improvements. 



It is worth noting that the exploration of the game is carried out in the open world, with merchants, towns, bandits, and other places of interest simmering throughout our journey. The world of Wartales is, at the same time, alive and melancholy. The atmosphere reminds me of Game of Thrones but without dragons and a bad ending. 

The combat is turn-based, in the most traditional way possible. The game does not offer so many combat resources, but it does favor strategy and logic, especially when it comes to positioning. We can take advantage of higher settings, field barriers, and other strategies to boost our advantages. For example: when we surround an enemy, our damage increases considerably, as does when we attack an unsuspecting enemy. 

Still, on the subject of combat, each mercenary can specialize in different forms of combat. Although there are no classes per se, Wartales delivers concepts reminiscent of traditional thieves, archers, and warriors, each with additional features that make their gameplay even more original, such as thieves specialized in poisons and warriors skilled with two-handed weapons.

All these features make Wartales a very complete and complex game for those who like the genre. My only caveat is the pace of the game, which can be too slow for those who are not used to RPGs of this style, especially because the journeys in the open world are slow and sometimes tedious (as they often are).



The beauty of the medieval world lies in the simplicity of its forms, the harmony of its proportions, and the elegance of its details.

A well-built world, with real references and too immersive. Wartales transported me to a dark and cold time, where beliefs and authoritarianism prevailed over common sense. Walking through the cities and noticing the richness of detail made me realize how games can teach history so vividly. As we experience gothic architecture or the huts of starving villagers, we can put ourselves in this very important period of human history. The graphics in Wartales are not flawless, but they manage to deliver an authentic medieval experience with their just-right setting. 

The character's clothing, the equipment, the architecture, and even the people put us into something like an unprecedented historical tour. As Kingdom Come: Deliverance, Wartales manages to be faithful in many aspects of the dark ages, which to me is sensational to see in a game. Allied with its setting, the game puts us in dialogue with central elements of the time that I only saw in KC:D and, to some extent, in Pentiment. 



As well as the graphics being impressive, the soundtrack is also very immersive, which makes us present in the game with great vigor. I felt that all the artwork managed to build one of the most unique experiences regarding the medieval era and this in itself is an unprecedented success. 

For this review, Wartales was played on PC via Steam.

Huge thanks to Shiro Unlimited for providing us with the Wartales access key and making this content possible.