The Iron Oath

2024: promises of full controller support, new class, new enemies, some other new stuff. Well, it is currently April of 2026 and none of that happened and no announcements were made in the past years. I haven't touched the game since it went into 1.0 because I was holding off for the new stuff that was being mentioned, unfortunately I waited for nothing this entire time. Disappointing.

Abandoned by devs. Unfinished product.

The game had potential, waited for the updates, but now it's dead... It's playable but not finished.

Medieval Fantasy Turn-based combat Manage your band of brothers Personality traits Classes and skills to select Attributes to improve 40-45 hours from start to finish. Perfect. Free to roam the world after the end game. Loved it. Better than some similar hyped games.

A wide sandbox about an inch deep. Combat has a lot bells and whistles, none of which are impactful enough to feel fun or dynamic. There are too few classes, too few enemy types, progression is not impactful. But I will say one thing for this game; whoever does the pixel art is NOT being paid enough. The animations are GORGEOUS. Not enough to make up for a boring game of course, but it's still very worth noting.

Looks good, great game on paper, story is okay, but the whole gameplay loop becomes tired fast and fights become chores. Me sad. :(

Extremely mid at launch, and abandoned with a lot of improvements still needed.

If you use your action before you move, you do not get to move. Unplayable. This ruleset kills the enjoyment of any tactical game for me, and if you feel the same, you won't like this game either.

While the combat system is decent, the game ultimately tries to wring too much proceduraly generated gameplay out of a thin source. The meat of the game is a turn-based hex-tile combat system. There is strong incentive to flank enemies, which in this game means having your troops on either side of them. This combined with the range of abilities makes for a simple but fun combat system. Maps often have some basic hazards you can push enemies into for extra damage or terrain that modifies stats, but nothing crazy. There is an overworld where you move the company around, picking up quests, traveling to dungeons and visiting towns to recruit, sell etc. You have the classic mercenary mechanic of needing to pay your troops regularly meaning you constantly need to be making money. Your mileage may vary with this system. The middle layer is dungeons where most missions take place. You play a minigame of a choosing your route through a randomly generated dungeon map, needing to manage limited resources like scouting, healing items and campfires. Dungeons turn fights into endurance tests where your skill uses and damage is carried over between fights. Character building is basic. As characters level up they can increase stats like HP, attack power, evasion, accuracy etc... Each class comes with 6 skills, of which you can equip 4 at a time. Characters can level up their skills in addition to stats. There are 8 classes currently, each feels sufficiently distinct that you can customize your party composition for a given mission, but you are pretty strictly limited to what each class can do. Gear is incredibly basic. There is the ability to attach stat boosts to gear and get magical item drops but the overwhelming amount of gear I saw (by about 50% through) are just number boosters that don't help you make 'builds' or alter playstyle. The combat is decent but the problem is that the game takes a simple combat system with a basic roster of classes and enemies and tries to stretch it way too far with procedural generation. There is a main storyline of missions but you will need to do other missions constantly to train and make money. These side missions are proceduraly generated, and you'll start to see the same mission over and over, repeating basically the same fights. The requirement to be constantly making money is a big driver of you needing to constantly be engaging in these repetitive, boring side quests. I got (I estimate) about halfway through the game and ran out of steam on my 10th mission to rescue a young mage from a dungeon. Indie strategy devs, I beg you, please make shorter, more hand crafted campaign experiences.

Would love to recommend this game, I had fun playing it and would check in during the development cycle waiting for the next update, but it looks like all the future promises have been abandoned as the last update is over a year past due. Only purchase this on a steep discount 75%+ off.