Heads Will Roll

I have a soft spot for the games that arrive quietly, with a small review count and no marketing budget, and ask you to give them a fair hearing. Heads Will Roll is exactly that game: a solo-developed survival RPG set against the grinding misery of the Hundred Years War, where you begin as a nobody footman and either claw your way toward knighthood or die face-down in a French field. It sits somewhere between a choose-your-own-adventure text RPG and a turn-based tactics game, and the tension between those two modes is both its greatest strength and its biggest rough edge. The combat is the beating heart of it, and it demands respect. Stats, weapon proficiency, fatigue accumulation, and a granular injury system all feed into every exchange. Choosing a spear over a sword matters because weapon length is a tracked variable. Getting hit too many times does not just strip hit points, it layers traumas onto your character that carry forward into future battles. Over 150 lootable items ranging from swords, axes, maces, and crossbows to poisons and crafting components mean pre-fight preparation has real teeth. The pacing is deliberate, sometimes to the point of stubbornness, and players who want momentum rather than caution will bounce off it. But if you read gear descriptions and respect the systems, the combat starts to feel precise rather than punishing. Outside of fights, the non-linear story structure does what it promises. NPCs track your behavior through a reputation and virtue system, and the choices you make close doors as often as they open new ones. Random generation elements mean starting items, enemy compositions, and story events shift between playthroughs, so a second run is not just a repeat of the first. There is a romance layer too, which surfaces naturally through the NPC relationship system rather than feeling bolted on. The writing quality is uneven in places and the interface is functional rather than elegant, but neither problem is disqualifying. The sound design is understated in a way I respect: it reinforces the low-key atmosphere without reaching for grandeur it cannot afford. The version on this page is the original 2021 release, which has since been succeeded by Heads Will Roll: Reforged, a substantially expanded follow-up. The original sits at a mostly positive rating on Steam from a small pool of players, which is honest signal for a game this niche. It is unpolished in ways that a solo developer shipping a hardcore RPG is always going to be unpolished. But the ambition is genuine, the systems interact in interesting ways, and if you have patience for a game that takes its medieval setting seriously without the production values to match, there is something real here worth your time.

Kai · Scout Team

Indie & narrative

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