Developer: PlayWood Project Aps
Publisher: PlayWood Project Aps, WhisperGames, Deck13 Interactive
Platforms: PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tested on: Xbox One
Wartile – Review
After the first release on Steam in 2018, The cooldown-base strategy game, Wartile has now come to consoles. Wartile combines a real-time strategy game with the mechanics of a board game. A daring combination which seems a bit awkward at first, but plays quite well after playing for a while. Combining this with a setting in Norse mythology, this could be quite an interesting game to play. We got the chance to take a look at the console version of Wartile.
Story
The Lore of Wartile is heavily based on Norse mythology. With terms like Ygdrassil, Niflheim, and Jotunheim, this game will easily let you think back to games like Skyrim and God of War, which are both also based on Norse mythology. While those games go a lot further with the lore and create their own stories with it, in Wartile, the mythology used is limited to locations and some mentioning of places and certain figures. The story itself is based upon the warband you control and it progresses as you travel around the world and capture territories.
You start as Hakon Goldenmane, The son of your village’s leader. Your father has died and you are his successor by birth. The story starts with tasking you to torch your father’s pyre and sacrificing an animal to the gods. As you travel around the world, you’ll encounter other groups that won’t take a liking to your arrival, meaning you’ll have to fight your way through to get where you need to be. As you progress through levels, the narrator will tell you more about where you are, why you’re going there and what you need to do. There isn’t much interaction between other characters, so the game lets you focus more on its interesting gameplay, rather than focusing on the story of the game.
Graphics
The graphics aren’t that stunning, but the game also isn’t terrible to look at. From a distance, the Figurines don’t look very detailed, but when zooming in, they look quite nice, although zooming in will definitely limit your vision while you need to keep an eye out on your surroundings. Each level is made up of a board filled with hexagonal tiles on which the figurines can move. Aside from these tiles, they also added some wilderness like trees, rocks and other objects on the board to make it more “alive”. The campaign map used in this game resembles the real-world map, showing Scandinavia and Great Britain as your warband travels to these areas and complete missions there.
Sound
Wartile is filled with some great music that really fits the game’s Norse theme, but the tracks are very short. When moving through the game in a rapid pace, you won’t really notice, but when you take a short break at the campaign map, you’ll definitely notice the tracks are really short. The game will mostly be silent with some short bits of music in-between. While playing, every written word is accompanied by a narrator with a very smooth voice and a nice accent that is quite amusing to hear.
Gameplay
Wartile is a cooldown-based real-time strategy board game that features quite a unique gameplay. Your warband is comprised of Viking figurines that can move around the tiles on the board. These figurines can move three to four tiles from where they are. Whenever you move with one figurine, a ring will appear around its base that will disappear after a few seconds. This indicates the cooldown for its next move. When having multiple characters under your control, it could be tricky to move them all in order one by one, so there’s also a move command that lets all figurines move together.
Most enemies will be static units on the board until one of your figurines get near one of them. They will have the same movement limitations you have, so after each move they make, a cooldown will start. Depending on the type of weapon the figurines have equipped, they can attack enemies one or multiple tiles in front of them. Make use of these advantages by placing the close combat figurines near enemies and those with a spear or other long-range weapons further away. The board isn’t flat so some tiles are higher or lower than others. When you figurines are on a higher tile, they’ll have a defensive advantage and attacking an enemy from behind will grant an offensive advantage, so making use of the terrain to your advantage is recommended.
Wartile also features two types of cards that can be used in and outside of combat. The first type of card are skill cards, Each character has their own skills and will expand the number of skills as they level up. These skills can stun your foes, immobilize your enemies, taunt your attackers to attack one particular unit of your warband or heal them and many other things. As you play, new skills will become available to use in the game. After usage, these skills will have a cooldown before they can be used again. The second type of cards are action cards. Before you enter a level, you can make a deck with five action cards. When you start a level, three cards are drawn from the deck. Each time you use a card, a new random card will be drawn. You won’t be limited to having one of each, so drawing duplicates of a card is possible. Using these cards costs battle points. You start with ten battle points at each level and defeating enemies on the board will grant you new points. These cards can be quite handy as they can set traps on the board, heal or strengthen your figurines, and many other things. More cards will be unlocked as you progress through the game.
You’ll start with two figurines to play with and as you progress into the story, more will become available for purchase in the Tavern with their own skills and new equipment sets. While outside a level, you can equip each figurine with equipment. You can give your figurines better weapons, shields and helmets. While exploring levels, you can find treasure chests that give you new equipment. You can also buy new equipment at the merchant, but these items can be quite expensive there, so it’s good to sell all your unused equipment to make cash for those new items. There is also special equipment that’ll have some special effects, like the Skull of Hel, which has a ten percent chance of summoning a Lost Norse that will temporarily fight alongside you after getting hit.
Conclusion
Wartile offers a great combination of an RTS and a board game. The cooldown-based action is quite something else if you compare it with a turn-based game. it’ll require you to keep active when in combat, keeping an eye out for better positions and making use of the cooldowns of both your own figurines and the enemies. The game plays great and we didn’t find any issues while playing the game. The story based on Norse Mythology can be quite interesting, although it doesn’t offer a lot of in-depth lore. Wartile is definitely an interesting spin-off to normal RTS games and for those who are into strategy games, we’d definitely recommend this one.
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