WARSAW

WARSAW is a turn-based tactical RPG developed by Pixelated Milk, set during one of WWII's most brutal and underrepresented chapters: the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, in which Polish resistance fighters held out against Nazi occupation for 63 days. That premise alone earns serious points for ambition. You command a small cell of rebels, managing their morale, supplies, and survival across a series of squad-level combat encounters. The historical framing is genuinely sobering, this is not a power fantasy, and the game makes sure you feel that. The combat system draws obvious comparisons to Darkest Dungeon: positional mechanics matter, character abilities are tied to their place in the marching order, and permadeath looms over every skirmish. Each fighter belongs to one of several archetypes, saboteurs, medics, scouts, and frontline brawlers among them, and building a functional squad requires thought about ability synergies rather than just raw stats. When it clicks, a well-timed suppression-into-flanking combo feels genuinely satisfying. The problem is that the mechanical depth never quite reaches the complexity it hints at. By the midgame, optimal strategies become repetitive, and the enemy variety does not do enough to break that rhythm. Fans of deep build theorycrafting will hit a ceiling sooner than they'd like. The writing is serviceable but rarely extraordinary. Character vignettes give your rebels some personality, and the historical backdrop lends weight to losses in a way that pure fantasy settings struggle to match. Losing a fighter you've spent hours developing hits differently when the game reminds you that these people were real, that this city was real. But the narrative never develops its cast far enough to make individual deaths feel like story moments rather than resource losses. Disco Elysium this is not, the dialogue is functional where it could be memorable, and the city of Warsaw itself, rich with potential as a setting, stays mostly in the background rather than becoming a character in its own right. On the production side, the pixel art is detailed and atmospheric. The gray, rubble-strewn streets communicate exhaustion and desperation effectively. The soundtrack is appropriately mournful. Where the game stumbles is in pacing, later missions can devolve into attrition slogs that feel less like tactical challenges and more like resource drain tests. The roguelite structure means you'll replay chunks of content, and not all of it earns a second visit. If padded encounters are your bane, some stretches here will test your patience. At Mixed reviews on Steam, WARSAW sits in an honest middle ground. It's a game with a strong concept, a meaningful setting, and just enough mechanical texture to pull in tactical RPG fans, but it does not fully deliver on any of its core promises. It's worth your time if the historical subject matter draws you in and you can tolerate a difficulty curve that sometimes feels more punishing than fair. Approach it as a rough-edged tribute to a story that deserves to be told, and you'll get more out of it than if you arrive expecting a polished genre standout.

Monika · Scout Team

RPGs

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