Warhounds

About Warhounds

Warhounds is a turn-based tactics RPG with strategy elements set in a gritty, action-movie inspired world. Developed by Brightika and released in late 2026, it casts you as a mercenary squad leader in a fictionalized Africa. The game mixes squad management, base building, and tactical combat, with a focus on realistic ballistics and no RNG-based misses. Contracts and mission variety drive the single-player campaign, where your choices shape the story. Think XCOM meets Jagged Alliance, but with a focus on character personalities and base upgrades. It’s a grind-heavy game for players who love planning every shot and managing resources.

Gameplay

Each session starts with managing your base: recruiting fighters, upgrading facilities, and assigning roles. Missions drop you into turn-based combat on procedurally generated maps. You control a squad of up to six mercenaries, each with unique skills, weapons, and morale levels. Combat emphasizes positioning, cover, and ammo conservation. For example, a sniper might spend turns flanking to avoid retaliation, while a close-combat specialist uses terrain to limit enemy approach. Missions vary from rescue ops to direct assaults, with objectives that require balancing risk and reward. The lack of RNG means every missed shot is your fault, not the game’s, plan carefully. Sessions last 45 minutes to an hour, with longer playthroughs needed to reach base-level upgrades.

What Players Think

Warhounds holds a 78% critic score and 72% user rating on Steam. The PlayPile community gives it 4.1/5 stars, with a 68% completion rate and average playtime of 18 hours. Reviews split between praise for its tactical depth and frustration over its steep learning curve. Positive feedback highlights “realistic weapon handling” and “meaningful squad customization,” while critics call it “punishingly opaque.” Moods are evenly split: 35% love the challenge, 28% call it tedious, and 25% find it addictive. One user wrote, “Finally a tactics game that respects my planning, but the UI feels like 1999.” Achievement completion averages 62%, with the hardest unlock requiring a 100% stealth mission success rate.

PlayPile's Take

Warhounds is a niche pick for fans of deep tactical systems. At $39.99, it’s pricey for a single-player RPG with a 15-hour main story, but its focus on pure strategy and squad-building appeals to XCOM veterans. The lack of RNG and fake misses is a major plus for hardcore players, though the steep difficulty might deter casual audiences. If you enjoy micro-managing ammo, exploiting cover angles, and rebuilding squads after losses, it’s worth the investment. Otherwise, skip it. Achievements add replayability, but expect to replay missions multiple times to master them.

Storyline

Warhounds is a turn-based tactics game about an elite mercenary squad with an old-school action-movie vibe. Recruit fighters with personality, upgrade your base, take contracts, and shape Africa’s future. No point-blank misses, no fake RNG, just real ballistics and lethal tactics.