Wartorn is an upcoming single-player, squad-based, real-time tactics roguelite game developed by Stray Kite Studios. Set for Early Access release on June 17, 2025, the game will be available on Steam and Epic Games Store for PC.
Players will follow the journey of two sisters exiled from their homeland as they fight for justice. Your mission is to help them reunite with their family and reach their ancestral fortress. Navigate through dangerous territories, recruit allies, and attempt to break the relentless cycle of death and failure in your struggle against the divine beings that rule this war-ravaged world.
Stray Kite Studios may not be a household name yet, but many will recognize Paul Hellquist among its ranks. As the creative director of Wartorn, his background speaks volumes: former lead designer on BioShock and creative director on Borderlands 2. This involvement alone makes a strong statement about the project’s potential, even before examining the game’s details. However, past accomplishments don’t guarantee future triumphs. Whether Wartorn will live up to expectations remains to be seen.
So, let’s take the first look at the Early Access version together.
Following the classic narrative structure, the story of sisters Yara and Elani begins in the rhythm of everyday life. On the cusp of adulthood, Yara receives a mysterious gift to mark the occasion, poised to step peacefully into a new chapter of her life. But fate intervenes. Before the celebration—or even its preparations—can begin, hostile troops surround the sisters’ family villa, engulfing it in flames.
Brave and defiant, Yara and Elani face their enemies with unwavering resolve, choosing honorable resistance over a humiliating escape. As a final act, they open Yara’s enigmatic gift, revealing an hourglass that instantly slows time around them. Seizing this magical advantage, they charge into battle with time on their side, yet two against an army cannot prevail. Death, however, can’t claim these courageous souls.
From now on, Elani and Yara are trapped in a relentless cycle, doomed to relive the same events repeatedly. This chance to restore their family’s honor and survive comes from the hourglass’s master—an all-powerful being who bends time to its will. The sisters must find a way to escape their fate, relying on this gift from the Avatar of Time, uncertain whether it is a blessing or a curse.
In roguelike and roguelite games, the narrative often hinges on a conflict of obscured truths, where the protagonists are unaware of the full scope of events or the world’s underlying structure. In Wartorn, the Avatar of Time doles out fragments of lore with each run, supplemented by boss encounters and reunions with family members. Only through repeated attempts can players piece together the intricate tapestry of the story.
However, the game struggles to present its world, lore and key events coherently. Players are thrust into a seemingly complex universe without sufficient explanation of its mythology or terminology. While the plot becomes easier to follow as events and entities connect, the experience often feels like watching a peculiar fantasy show rather than being immersed in it.
The writers likely aimed for a narrative tone akin to Hades—stylish and lighthearted yet capable of depth and gravity—but the execution falls short. Yara, the shy conscience of the duo, and Elani, the aggressive vengeance-driven sister, start with distinct personalities that are initially engaging. However, sluggish character development quickly undermines their appeal. Similarly, the godly Avatars, portrayed as sarcastic beings dismissive of mortals, are compelling at first, but their tone shifts to excessive irony, as if they’re mocking the game itself.
The root issue may lie in the dialogue, which often clashes with the dark fantasy aesthetic despite the use of unique terms and an original language. Call me an old-fashioned cave nerd, but a character’s speech style shapes the game’s identity in profound ways. In Wartorn, the dialogue dilutes the dark, desperate tone, diminishing the sense of danger and despair central to the sisters’ quest for survival and justice.
The true boss is bureaucracy.
The main adventure begins as the caravan sets out across the lands, guided through a vast map. This segment evokes the Pathfinder series’ style of travel, with random encounters and events shaping the journey. Wartorn attempts a player-guided narrative here, offering choices in events and consequences for those decisions.
This could have been an elegant fit for a roguelite game, were it not for one significant flaw: the events aren’t truly random. During the first, second, or even fourth run, unexplored roads deliver encounters and events with a sense of fresh discovery. However, revisiting a familiar path triggers an overwhelming sense of déjà vu.
Repetition is common in roguelike games, but when players can predict outcomes and event chains, these encounters lose their purpose. The system lacks dynamism. Traveling the map is already slow, but when it’s punctuated by repetitive text-based events—where players select the same options repeatedly—the game feels like it’s wasting time.
Yes, this ties into the narrative’s “Groundhog Day” effect, with Yara and Elani aware of the time loop, but it reduces the roguelite element to little more than reloading a save game, with a tint of justification for a design flaw rather than a deliberate choice. The experience might feel different if events unfolded on generated maps, like battles, with characters tackling mini-quests, but we’re left with what’s here.
Throughout the journey, players must manage squads, monitor resources, and maintain team morale. Many of these elements tie directly to battles and their outcomes, with victories offering rewards and squad losses delivering penalties.
Early on, balancing these factors is challenging: the caravan consumes food constantly, money is scarce, and stores are not always accessible. It takes multiple runs to master resource management, learn optimal routes, and plan actions effectively.
This aspect of the game becomes easier as the resources gained can be used to upgrade the skills and perks. Every time the sisters are thrown back to their villa, they can use the resources to open the bonuses of Community Tree and spell book in the library, gaining additional resources and power. It’s not so easy to gather enough resources for the fast upgrades, but it’s the point of rogue-like or lite games, no?
However, the core challenge, as expected in an RTS game, lies in the battles triggered by random encounters. Players must devise winning strategies based on squad abilities and available units, leveraging elemental synergies and the time-slowing hourglass. Battles feature varied objectives—escaping, defending the wagon, or facing bosses—but they lack the dynamic depth and strategic complexity initially promised.
Most encounters can be resolved by choosing the escape option, which is a smart choice in early runs. It saves time and progresses the story when resources are too low to hire strong squads. Defensive battles, however, are tougher, often leaving players outnumbered in initial runs. At the beginning, the battles are challenging and hard, but once you learn the logic, you realize that strategic options are limited.
Players start with water-lightning teams, but fire and earth units must be recruited from stores—and that’s the extent of it. Once elemental squads are assembled, gameplay narrows to using the hourglass (effectively a tactical pause) and cycling through team skills on cooldown.
Sadly, units deal minimal damage outside their skills, and with enemies also fielding squad-based teams, area-of-effect (AOE) skills become essential for success, tying combat to repetitive skill usage. Units are also unresponsive to commands, making it difficult to dodge enemy AOE skills in time. Even with the time-slow mechanic, units often take hits, flying around like ragdolls as a result.
The game could be more dynamic if it wasn’t squad centered, but rather unique single units, special NPC or Yara and Elani’s family members we gather on the journey. Smaller teams with more unique skill could give the gameplay more dynamics and variation over rather clumsy squads. The teams of five or so heroes with a set of unique skills like in CRPG could bring more fresh feeling to the Wartorn.
Where Wartorn truly shines is in its art direction. The 2D artwork is simply stunning, with a quality that brings the world to life. Each character, from the protagonists Yara and Elani to the lowliest enemy, is meticulously designed with intricate details that reflect their role in the narrative and the spirit of the world. Whether it’s the elegant armor of an elven warrior or the grotesque features of a demonic foe, every unit feels purposeful, enhancing the storytelling through visual cues.
The hand-drawn map is equally captivating, evoking the sense of an endless journey. Its delicate, vein-like roads and scattered cities trace the contours of an entire country, inviting players to imagine the scale of the Isles of Talaur. This map isn’t just functional—it’s a work of art that deepens the game’s atmosphere.
The 3D environments and characters, while relatively low-poly, are no less impressive. For an isometric game, Wartorn has a nice balance of detail, delivering visuals that are both beautiful and performant. The family villa, though visited briefly, exudes charm with its cozy interiors and subtle environmental storytelling—scattered books, ancestral portraits, and worn furniture hint at the sisters’ upbringing and the weight of their legacy.
As players venture beyond, the game’s locations shift to haunting ruins, dense forests, and battle-scarred fields. These environments, though simpler than the 2D art, blend seamlessly with the painterly aesthetic, creating a cohesive visual identity. Ruins bear the scars of war with crumbled stone and overgrown vines, while forests shimmer with dappled light, reinforcing the dark fantasy tone. S
mall touches, like the glow of elemental effects or the flicker of torchlight, add dynamism to the scenes, making even repetitive battles visually engaging. Together, the 2D and 3D art elevate Wartorn’s world, making its aesthetic one of its strongest assets.
However, the painterly effect, often used in recent games, creates an unpleasant blur and shimmering on the screen that can strain the eyes and may even be hazardous for some players. Combined with dynamic lighting, it plays optical tricks that cause discomfort after long sessions. The solution came unexpectedly when I adjusted the game settings and lowered the Reflection parameter. For whatever reason, this removed the annoying blur and shimmering from my screen.
On the technical side, Wartorn is impressively polished. There’s no overload on CPU or GPU, no memory leaks, and no excessive post-processing aside from the painterly effect. The game runs smoothly without lag, and I encountered no actual bugs during my playtime—a rare feat in today’s gaming landscape. The only issue I faced was endless loading at the game’s start, where it wouldn’t even reach the main menu, getting stuck on the loading art. This problem seems to occur only if you minimize the game or open another app over it during loading. The solution is simple: restart.
Despite bold promises on its beautiful cover, Wartorn struggles to deliver the envisioned experience in its fullest form. It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly who this game appeals to, though it may suit players who prefer a measured experience with a predictable path. The low level of action also opens the door for casual players to join in.
As an Early Access title, Wartorn isn’t a complete game, leaving room for improvement. Still, it takes solid steps in the right direction. With thoughtful tweaks and reconsidered game design, it has the potential to become a truly unique and engaging experience, capturing gamers’ hearts and carving a new chapter in the story of roguelike and roguelite games.
