Developer: The Tea Division, Richard Garfield
Publisher: The Tea Division
Platform: PC
Tested on: PC
Vanguard Exiles – Preview
If the title of this preview had you hoping that Cardfight!! Vanguard would be making its triumphant return to the video game arena, we’re sorry to disappoint: Vanguard Exiles has nothing to do with Bushiroad’s TCG franchise. Instead, this Early Access title is the brainchild of the creator of another TCG behemoth, although you wouldn’t say that based on the gameplay. Wondering what you can expect instead? Read on as we jump into the trenches of Vanguard Exiles.
The main selling point that developer The Tea Division pushes to promote Vanguard Exiles is that the game was designed by Richard Garfield, the creator of Magic: The Gathering. While this does make sense from a marketing perspective, it’s worth mentioning that Vanguard Exiles’ gameplay bears no similarities to MTG. In fact, apart from the presence of fantasy archetype races like Elves and Dwarves, Vanguard Exiles has nothing in common with MTG at all. What you’re getting here is a strategic autobattler with rogue-like elements and a board game-esque presentation. The game is set in a fantasy version of World War 1 and focuses on trench battles. It’s a setting that is potentially rich in lore, but at the time of writing, a narrative campaign hasn’t been implemented just yet. The different factions that you can choose from do have illustrious names like Inquisitor Steiner’s Vanquishers or Sir Dentan’s Privateers, but as it stands, those names mean nothing.
The aim of Vanguard Exiles is to be the first player to reach a specific number of victory points. This is done by strategically capturing points on an ever-expanding battlefield. The game follows a turn-based structure, with each turn comprising three phases: Deploy, Reveal, and Skirmish. Of those three, the Deploy phase is the most important, as it is the only one where players have agency. In this phase, units need to be placed on the tiles that make up the battlefield. Strategic insight is key here, as different tiles are worth a different number of VPs. Other tiles may offer benefits like extra income or buffs to specific units. As if that wasn’t enough, you may obtain bonus effects that you can apply to tiles themselves, including debuffs to enemy units. There is a good amount of guessing required here, as you cannot see what your opponent is deploying where, although you do get to see which units they have in their possession.
After you’ve finished placing everything on the map, the game moves on to the Reveal phase. As the name indicates, this is when you get to see where opposing pieces have been placed on the map. Any additional effects are also resolved in this phase. Finally, the game moves on to the Skirmish phase, where units will capture tiles, fight enemy units, or move to support friendly ones. Both of these phases are resolved automatically. After this, any VPs earned during the Skirmish phase are tallied up and added to the game’s total. Finally, players are given the choice to add a new unit to their force from a random selection of three. Basic units are free, whereas better units cost gold to recruit. Of note is that any units that die in the Skirmish phase are permanently lost.
The basic framework of Vanguard Exiles is easy enough to understand once you get to grips with it, but the Early Access version of the game does suffer from accessibility issues. There is no introductory campaign to ease you into the gameplay. The game’s tutorial simply consists of a video that goes over the core mechanics. We also couldn’t make sense of the in-game enemy AI. This likely needs fine-tuning. The lifeblood and the longevity of Vanguard Exiles is likely going to be in the game’s online PVP, but we couldn’t find an opponent using the in-game matchmaking just yet. Instead, we were matched with an AI opponent anyway.
In terms of presentation, Vanguard Exiles is a bit of a mixed bag. The art direction for the units themselves is good, with their designs bringing to mind fantasy sci-fi settings like Warhammer 40,000’s Death Korps of Krieg or those of tabletop skirmish game Trench Crusade. However, the 2D character designs don’t mesh well with the 3D environments. The game’s readability is very poor, with a clunky interface. Vanguard Exiles commits the cardinal sin of having too much clutter on the screen at any given time while simultaneously hiding relevant information behind tooltips. It doesn’t help that the game’s color palette mainly consists of blacks, dark greys, and browns. Aesthetically, it makes sense given the setting, but in practice, it hurts the overall experience. We’re willing to overlook the game’s shoddy performance as this is still an Early Access title, but it’s worth mentioning that frame drops and lag are common as well.
Many of our issues with Vanguard Exiles have already been announced to be resolved as the game continues to grow and evolve. A narrative, single-player campaign has been confirmed to be in the works, and a tutorial is on the way as well. This makes getting into Vanguard Exiles a more attractive prospect down the line. Right now, it may be a bit too early to bite the proverbial bullet, though. The core mechanics are great, but their execution leaves some things to be desired, and there isn’t enough content to justify the €14.79 RRP just yet.
Conclusion
There is definitely potential slumbering within Vanguard Exiles, but the game needs some more time in the oven before we’d recommend the Early Access version. While the core gameplay is decent enough, Vanguard Exiles puts in too little effort to familiarize players with its finer mechanics. The interface is needlessly cluttered, the enemy AI isn’t up to snuff just yet, and the visual presentation is uneven at best. With enough time and care, we can see Vanguard Exiles become a top contender in the autobattler genre, but it’s not up there quite yet.
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