Strategy

The Guild 1 Remake: Europa 1410 entered Early Access today, and after seven hours, the good news is that going back to the style of the original Guild was absolutely the right direction for me. ...

ENDLESS Legend 2 reaches 1.0 tomorrow, but after seven hours with the finished game, we’re already having trouble putting it down. ...

Dunebound Tactics enters an increasingly crowded field of party-based tactical roguelites in 2026 and somehow manages not to feel like all the others we’ve played this year. Combat feels relatively straightforward and doesn’t rely on much flash, but there’s enough underneath that it still has depth. Multiple classes and their variations begin creating some fun combinations between party members, while the front and rear lines allow backup caravan members to rotate in between fights or replace those who don’t survive the journey. During fights the backline can lend their special abilities to those on the battlefield. ...

Dungeon Settlers promises a combination that should be an easy sell: colony builder plus dungeon crawler. After a full seven-hour stream, however, it currently feels much more like the latter. The settlement side was surprisingly basic in the scenario played. With the colony safely isolated on an island like landmass, there was little concern about defending or securing it. The only reason to develop it at all was the requirement of work benches to be inside. Dungeon expeditions provide resources needed for survival, construction, and research, making them the real engine driving the game forward. ...

STAR WARS Zero Company was always going to get compared to X-COM, but after four hours we can safely declare it is not. ...

Folk Emerging sets itself a difficult task: build a 4X game entirely around the Stone Age and somehow find enough depth to make that limited slice of history interesting. ...

Anno 117 returns with The Hippodrome, and calling this one Resurrected would require pretending it ever died. ...

Warhounds presents itself as a tactical game inspired by XCOM and Jagged Alliance, replacing their sometimes frustrating RNG with a more realistic ballistic system. In theory, that sounds great. In practice, realism becomes questionable when bullets travel through walls, or even up through solid ground. ...

IRON NEST: Heavy Turret Simulator builds an entire game around a wonderfully specific idea: operating an enormous mobile artillery and figuring out how to put very large shells onto very distant targets. It is a concept carried by an impressive amount of personality. Both the writing and visual presentation are filled with small details that give the world character, while the targeting mechanics turn each mission into something more than simply pointing a cannon at an enemy and pulling the trigger. ...

Corsair Cove arrived carrying some mixed expectations. Developed by the team behind Tropico 6, what could be considered a below standard Tropico release, some strong interest was created by it’s demo. Fortunately, the developers set sail in entirely their own direction, and the result is one of the most refreshing city builders in recent memory. ...