Broken Roads

I went into Broken Roads with high expectations and a notebook. The creative pedigree was real: the team enlisted Colin McComb, who worked on Fallout 2 and Planescape: Torment, and narrative lead Leanne Taylor-Giles, who contributed to Torment: Tides of Numenera. Pre-release chatter was comparing it to Disco Elysium territory - a philosophically driven CRPG that might actually make you think about what you believe. That pitch is seductive. The delivery is more complicated. The star of the show is the Moral Compass, and it is genuinely interesting on paper. Rather than the tired good-versus-evil slider, your choices plot a position on a 360-degree map across four philosophical stances: Humanist, Utilitarian, Machiavellian, and Nihilist. Your worldview - expressed as a cone on that compass - expands or narrows based on the decisions you make, and it gates future dialogue options accordingly. Lean deep enough into Machiavellianism and you unlock traits that reflect the philosophy in combat mechanics, affecting things like critical hit damage. The idea that a moral framework should have mechanical consequences, not just story ones, is the right instinct. When it works, the Moral Compass produces genuinely tense moments where the most expedient path and the most humane one are in real conflict. You pick your origins from four starting backgrounds - Hired Gun, Surveyor, Barter Crew, or Jackaroo - each shaping your base stats and opening scene, though all roads converge on the same central narrative beats. The classless character system means you can push points into Deadeye and Shooting Mastery for ranged builds, or lean into persuasion and bartering if you would rather talk your way across the Outback. The setting is where the game earns its most unconditional praise. The Australian Outback is rendered with real love - authentic locations reconstructed from physical research trips, a glossary of Australian slang built into the UI so non-locals are not left behind, and a soundtrack built from instruments constructed out of everyday objects. The developers worked with Indigenous elders and writers to handle First Nations culture respectfully, and that care shows in the texture of the world. It is a genuinely rare thing: a game set in Australia, made by Australians, that grapples with colonialism and working-class identity without turning them into wallpaper. The prose in the best stretches has warmth and specificity, and a handful of characters are written with enough eccentricity to make every conversation worthwhile. But here is the problem. The combat, which runs on an action-point system in the vein of classic XCOM-adjacent turn-based RPGs, feels more like an obligation than a feature. Difficulty spikes arrive without warning - including fights that can end before your party gets a single turn - and many players reasonably conclude that the game is best played as a dialogue-heavy experience with combat avoided wherever possible. The loading screens are relentless, separating every room transition with a pause long enough to read a philosopher quote off the screen. Bugs at launch caused quest progression to break. And for a system built around philosophical nuance, the Moral Compass in practice can feel narrow: alignment shifts are subtle, the difference between adjacent philosophies like Humanist and Utilitarian can be hard to feel in actual play, and critics noted that choices do not always produce the variety of outcomes the system promises. The studio behind the game went into administration in early 2025, which raises real questions about the long-term patch roadmap. Broken Roads is the kind of game I respect more than I can enthusiastically recommend. Its best hours - the sharp dialogue, the atmospheric Outback, the moments where the Moral Compass actually bites - remind you of what this genre can do when it takes ideas seriously. Its worst hours are a buggy, combat-averse slog through loading screens. If your tolerance for rough edges is high and you want a CRPG that at least tries to say something original about morality and place, there is something here worth finding. Everyone else should wait for a deep discount and patch notes.

Monika · Scout Team

RPGs

Be the first to comment on Broken Roads.