Battle Brothers is a gritty tactical role-playing game (RPG) that lets players manage a ragtag group of mercenaries. Developed and published by Overhype Studios, Battle Brothers is not a game for everyone. It is a game that will test the player’s patience and perseverance in an unforgiving world. There are no acts of heroism; men will die, and parties will be decimated. The only option the player has is to try again.

The game is set in a low-power medieval, fantasy world where the noble houses are just as deadly to the player as the goblins and orcs that roam the world. Players are given many starting scenarios ranging from a new mercenary band to northern raiders seeking their fortunes in wealthy southern lands. Once one is chosen, the player is placed into a randomly generated world. No matter the start, the beginning of any mercenary band is a tumultuous one. The men your company starts with are often weak, and the ones you afford to hire and pay are often weaker. You’ll typically take who you can afford, be it a simple farmhand or a eunuch. When hiring mercenaries in towns, the player is given a short vignette on their backstories, adding much to the game’s fantasy and setting the stage for a dogged mercenary group.

Once you assemble your motley band of men, you’ll be taking on contracts from towns. These range from protecting a caravan to retrieving a stolen item from bandits. With contracts comes combat. Combat in Battle Brothers is turn-based and the chess-like men hop along with hexes in a grid. It’s somewhat endearing until you see one of your men decapitated in a single blow from a raider’s ax. Each weapon type has its own special abilities, and each tactic has a counter-tactic. The game is most difficult in the beginning, but still manages to make enemies competitive throughout an entire playthrough. Men from poor backgrounds will often have shoddy gear, and you’ll not have enough funds to equip them, forcing you to work with what you have. Combat is brutal, often requiring trial and error when facing new enemies. Over time, your ranks will slowly fill with men who have lost a finger, have had their nose sliced off, or now wear an eyepatch, and trophies from battles won.

I must mention how the men actually look in the game, their image consists of only a torso, head, and arms. Still, given the limited portrait, the characters are incredibly detailed, their faces are especially striking. Each piece of armor is displayed on the mercenary, as well as their weapons. The armor is mostly historical, and mail and gambeson are a common sight. Men will be able to upgrade their equipment over time, often acquired through battle or bought from a town. Mercenaries advance from farming tools such as pitchforks and flails to war picks and greatswords. You’ll get a great sense of accomplishment seeing your once band of peasants develop into seasoned warriors.

The leveling system can be a bit clunky. Stat increases are based on roles, and some backgrounds are predisposed to have specific higher stats. For example, an adventurous noble will start with a greater melee attack stat than a rat catcher and will gain more attack each time they level. Each mercenary can also have positive or negative traits; players can witness their clubfooted cripple struggle in battle as their bloodthirsty barbarian brother swings his ax wildly. Having men with somewhat random stats makes each brother more unique. but makes optimization more difficult. Players who want to optimize their bands will often find themselves struggling against the game’s random elements.

With no end goal in Battle Brothers, the game depends on the player to set their own. The player has one objective — to survive. In such an unforgiving world, survival will be difficult; but the game gives the players all the tools needed to thrive. Battle Brothers is a consistent game, offering consistent fun. There are always surprises around the corner, and with the constant threat of men dying, stakes are always high. The game is triumphant in what it sets out to accomplish — a brutal and gritty look into the running of a mercenary band.