Fight of Steel: Infinity Warrior

My first instinct with a sub-$15 indie fighting game is to expect shallow mechanics and broken netcode. Fight of Steel: Infinity Warrior surprised me on both counts, and then handed me a different problem entirely. The core hook is the loadout system. Instead of picking a locked character, you choose a Combat Stance and slot in Martial Art Chips to build your move set from scratch. Specials are input as command normals, supers fire off a single button, and EX moves give you a powered-up version of your specials when you need a burst option. There is also an OVERDRIVE mechanic that layers in some match-momentum depth. None of this requires you to memorize quarter-circle motions, which lowers the barrier to entry without completely flattening the skill ceiling. Chaining dash cancels into combos is genuinely satisfying once it clicks, and the responsiveness holds up. The flip side is that because moves share a mostly universal damage scale, players naturally gravitate toward a handful of optimal loadouts, and build diversity narrows fast at any competitive level. The netcode gets a proper mention because the developer actually shipped rollback. They use relay servers to bridge connections, and even on a stress-test Wi-Fi connection the experience stayed playable with only occasional rollbacks. Ranked mode existed at launch and functioned correctly. That said, the elephant in the room is population. Concurrent player numbers have collapsed since launch. If you are buying this expecting to grind a ranked ladder with a healthy player pool, temper those expectations hard. The rollback investment was the right call technically; it just does not help much when matchmaking times become a problem in their own right. Single player content holds up better than most fighting games at this price. There is a Story Mode where you climb the Tower across at least eight fights with multiple endings tied to win conditions, a classic Arcade Mode against randomized opponent builds, and a Challenge Mode built around stat composition and part collecting. The variety is real. The AI does read inputs on grabs occasionally, which cheapens some of the harder encounters, but difficulty scaling is otherwise reasonable. One genuine quality-of-life gap: when you are browsing and buying move chips, there is no in-game description or hitbox display. New players will spend credits on moves that do not fit their playstyle and get punished online before they understand why. The visuals are a mixed bag. Stage backgrounds and 2D artwork are well above budget-game average. The 3D robot models carry strong visual identity and the sheer number of customizable parts is impressive. Humanoid body builds are a different story, with expressionless faces and proportions that land squarely in uncomfortable territory. The UI has been flagged by multiple reviewers as cluttered, and that criticism is fair, though it does not actively prevent you from playing. Bottom line: the mechanical foundation here is genuinely solid for what it costs, and the rollback implementation is more than a marketing checkbox. The problem is that the game never built a population to sustain the multiplayer it was designed around. If you have a regular sparring partner or a small group to play local versus or Remote Play Together sessions with, this punches above its weight class. Solo players will get reasonable mileage from the single-player modes before the lack of fresh opponents becomes obvious. Going in blind and hoping to find online matches on demand in 2024 will leave you staring at a lobby screen. Fred, Scout Team