Veterum has brought me quite a lot of joy over the past few weeks! We’re halfway into January, and a lot is happening behind the scenes here. It is usually a slow start to the year for big releases, and it’s given me some spare time to play the games I’ve had knocking on my door. Veterum is one of those examples, and if you’re a fan of Battle Brothers, this is one game you don’t want to miss. It’s in Early Access right now with a fair amount of content and polish, and is available for $19.99.

At its core, Veterum is a dark fantasy tactical RPG. That is quite the mouthful, but we do need more games like this. The punishing turn-based combat is in full display, but this is a kinder game than the brutality of Battle Brothers. While the game is still challenging with plenty of planning needed to survive, it’s not quite as cruel to your squad as Battle Brothers.

There isn’t really a narrative to the game yet, with the sandbox gameplay the core of the content right now. A campaign is still in development, but is scheduled for release before 1.0. Despite the light story, I appreciate the world and setting of Veterum. Order of the Gatekeepers in a mysterious and perilous world on the brink of apocalypse. You lead a diverse force composed of humans, dwarves, elves, and wildmen, with plenty of opportunities to grow as a mercenary band. Veterum is focusing more on the gameplay than writing right now, and that’s fine with me.

The core gameplay loop is probably Veterum’s biggest strength, and you roam around the open world picking up quests, navigating tricky encounters, and dealing with environmental puzzles with some potent battles. Everything is procedurally generated with everyone’s favorite phrase, ‘no two playthroughs are the same. I’ve always disliked that with roguelike tags because it’s more often than not bollocks, but Veterum makes a decent swing at things. The battles, town resources, and quests change with every map, which does make things somewhat unpredictable, and all this feeds into the gameplay. The game does a good job of blending exploration with managing your growing army, and it made me care about my party and make careful decisions about where to go next.

The combat system is another key point, and I’m enjoying the careful balance between challenge and punishment. Combat takes place on a hex-grid and is turn-based, requiring careful positioning, thoughtful unit selection before a battle, and effective use of the environment. Factors such as morale, fatigue, line of sight, terrain, and weather all impact the outcome of fights, which I appreciate. Not everything is about having the most magic or blades. Environmental interactivity is another important part of combat, and you can deal with threats through cool things such as freezing rivers, building barricades to funnel enemies into kill zones, and so on. It’s pretty cool, and I wish more turn-based RPGs had more environment interactivity.

Despite the Early Access tag and lack of a full story right now, I feel Veterum is in a pretty good place already, with most of the core systems in place and plenty of content. There are even some impressive modding capabilities through the built-in unit and map editors, so that people can develop their own scenarios and worldspaces. I haven’t dabbled with this part of the game yet, as it’s an impressions review first, but I love games that do this.

To conclude, Veterum offers a rich strategy experience that’s impressive for an Early Access title. As I always stress with games in constant development, only buy an Early Access game if you feel the content and polish it currently has are enough, rather than buying based on a hypothetical future. If getting beaten down in Battle Brothers got you down (awesome game though!), and if you want something a bit more experimental, I can easily recommend Veterum.

Moonlighter was an odd little game. Released back in 2019 by 11 Bit Studios, the first game was a strange little duck hybrid of running a shop and dungeon crawling, with an interesting gameplay loop. The game was a decent experience, if a little bland. When Digital Sun announced they were making the sequel, I was excited.

Digital Sun is a pretty cool studio, and I adored their last game, Cataclismo. It was a grimdark mix of basebuilding and RTS with a dark story that I really enjoyed, and they have taken their experience to good effect with Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault. I was surprised by the long gap between the games, but I am glad to see Moonlighter 2 is finally out. Big thanks to 11 Bit Studios for the review code, by the way!

The game is out in Early Access right now, with a decent amount of content at launch and a solid framework to start with. It has had some teething troubles, but I have been enjoying myself with this one so far.

Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault continues the adventure of the first game, but with some critical changes. This time, the art style is fully 3D and presented in an isometric perspective. You step into the shoes of Will, the shopkeeper-adventurer, starting anew in a strange dimension within the village of Tresna. There’s some pretty funny dialogue and interesting story beats here, with Will effectively being treated as a servant by their big orc shopkeeper boss. Things escalate into a ‘save the world’ kinda thing, which won’t win any originality prizes, but the beats are decent. So far, so good.

When not running the shop, you delve into shifting, roguelike dungeons across ever-changing dimensions in search of relics and treasure. The combat and exploration feature roguelike elements, requiring you to adapt to new dungeon layouts and foes using a variety of weapons and tactics. That loot carries into the shop mechanics during the day, in which you price items that were salvaged during the dives. Why only one random jock can do this is anyone’s guess, but it’s a good enough excuse. Money earned goes into new equipment for you and helps to rebuild the village.

More dungeon crawlers could benefit from this management system, like a shop, and Moonlighter 2 definitely feels more refined than the original. I think the combat and loot systems are much stronger than in the first, with more varied dungeons, more interesting combat, and a wider range of systems. The gameplay is fairly satisfying despite the early access build.  I am a fan of the combat, and exploring the dungeons is more exciting than it was in the original. It is now more dynamic, featuring a variety of weapons and perks that add depth beyond simple attack mechanics. Roguelike-style perks, relic modifiers, and inventory management keep things fresh.

Despite the early access model and the content being incomplete, there is a fair amount of playtime here, including multiple biomes, over 120 relics to discover, various shop and dungeon perks to unlock, and customization options for your shop and town. 

Moonlighter 2 does have some issues. I’ve had a lot of performance problems. Even on higher-end systems, I’ve had crashes and slowdowns, especially during combat. I also had some horrendous issues with the Steam Deck at launch, though patches have improved it slightly.

While I’m enjoying the overall story, they feel somewhat lacking, and some promised features, such as shop customization, deeper NPC interactions, and more variety in dungeons or bosses, feel a little underdeveloped right now. Early Access exists for a reason, and I am confident these things will be addressed, but it is essential to note. Overall, I’m enjoying my time with Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault, and I’m excited to see where it goes.

We’re back! We’ve had snow this week, and the cold snap is rather irritating when you have a long commute to work. The Game of the Year discourse continues to be entertaining, and I find it funny how seriously people take it.

As always, we are back with the video games, and today’s review features SWAPMEAT, a colorful roguelite shooter that’s been enjoying a fairly solid reception. It is one of those games I hope gets more attention, and while it’s in early access with a long way to go, it has a solid core that nails one of the main reasons we play video games. We play them for fun, and SWAPMEAT is oodles of that, wrapped in an artistic style that drips with character. It’s not perfect, of course, but I am enjoying myself with this one so far.

SWAPMEAT has some interesting mechanics that set it apart from the torrent of roguelikes and ‘boomer shooters’ on the market, making it more engaging for players interested in innovative gameplay. I make a lot of jokes about how the indie market has its own version of the ‘AAA Open World’ model, and that’s usually the roguelike and deckbuilder genres. Regardless, I appreciate what SWAPMEAT has on offer. In this galactic adventure, players can take on body parts from the monsters they butcher, swapping out fleshy appendages for different bonuses. That is a creative way of powering yourself up. Most games offer dull methods like picking up the weapons of the fallen to bolster yourself in the big fight for survival.

Pulling off somebody’s arm and wielding it as a weapon against the poor corpse’s mates sounds disturbing and hilarious, and it is how I prefer to do things. SWAPMEAT comes with a decent amount of content for its alpha Early Access build, featuring a partially complete campaign, several difficulty levels, co-op multiplayer, and random solar systems to run through after finishing the campaign. I quite like how the devs are approaching this one, providing a solid core of progression and gameplay systems, a tasty campaign, and promising replayability that hints at more content to come, keeping players’ interest alive for future updates.

I’ve been having fun with this one so far, with both the visual design and core gameplay loop keeping me engaged. I do sometimes wonder, though, about the value of playing story campaigns while they are incomplete during Early Access. It usually means having to replay everything when it’s complete and polished for full release, which can lead to a rough first impression. Besides that quibble of mine and a few weird bugs, however, SWAPMEAT is living up to my expectations.

The price tag of $24.99 is relatively high for an indie game in Early Access, especially a FPS, but the combination of content and decent polish makes it a fair value. As with all Early Access games, though, I would purchase based on what is available now rather than what is planned, because anything can happen in this industry. This approach helps readers make informed choices and manage expectations. Regardless, however, I do recommend the game for its sheer creativity alone, which is evident even in its current state.