Wartales

Wartales on PC is an open-world, turn-based tactical RPG about leading a mercenary company through a plague-scarred medieval world. The current storefront name remains Wartales, with no verified rebrand or replacement edition on the major PC stores. Developed and published by Shiro Games, it combines freeform exploration, contract work, camp management, crafting, and demanding tactical battles where injuries, exhaustion, and death can permanently change your roster.

Its strongest appeal is the way separate systems feed into one another. A companion is not only a battlefield unit: they can also become a cook, blacksmith, thief, scholar, tinkerer, angler, miner, or alchemist. Your choices outside combat directly affect how prepared the company is when the next ambush begins.

Mercenary life between contracts and combat

The main loop starts on the campaign map, where your company travels between villages, mines, tombs, ruins, camps, and other points of interest. Movement consumes stamina, while food, wages, medicine, and equipment create constant pressure on your finances. You can accept contracts, collect bounties, investigate local problems, trade supplies, or simply explore until a worthwhile opportunity appears.

Combat switches to a readable tactical battlefield with turn-based actions, positional attacks, engagement rules, and shared Valor Points used for special abilities. A frontline fighter can lock an enemy in place, allowing another companion to move around the fight and exploit a rear attack. Disengaging is not a free reset, so positioning and the timing of retreats matter as much as raw damage.

Weapons and skill choices shape each companion's battlefield identity. Swordsmen, brutes, rangers, archers, spearmen, warriors, and other combat roles can be specialized through skill trees and equipment choices. A unit built around riposte, bleeding, poison, area attacks, support abilities, or crowd control can behave very differently from another character in the same class.

Wartales is not structured like a conventional linear campaign with a single hero and a fixed party. The company itself is the protagonist. Companions can be recruited from settlements, taverns, prisoners, and unexpected encounters, then trained, equipped, assigned professions, and gradually turned into reliable specialists.

Survival systems that make every companion useful

The camp is a practical management layer rather than a decorative menu. You can assign companions to camp tools, prepare meals, repair equipment, create consumables, craft weapons, and improve the group's ability to recover between battles. Professions are especially important because they turn spare time and gathered materials into food, gear, medicine, trade goods, and useful bonuses.

Company growth is balanced by persistent risk. Injuries can reduce a unit's effectiveness, enemies can capture or kill valuable members, and poorly managed supplies can make travel more dangerous. Permadeath pressure is therefore part of the strategic texture, even though the exact consequences depend on the campaign settings you choose.

Wartales also lets you recruit and train animals, capture prisoners, investigate ancient tombs, and uncover regional storylines. These activities do not sit apart from the main loop: tomb exploration may produce relics for a scholar, prisoners can become a source of income, and animals can add different tactical roles to the roster.

At the start of a campaign, players can choose between Adaptive and Region-locked progression. Adaptive progression adjusts encounters to the development of the company, while Region-locked progression gives areas a more fixed difficulty curve. That choice changes how freely you can roam and whether exploration feels like a flexible sandbox or a gradual push into harsher territory.

Content model, expansions, and current editions

The PC base game is a premium purchase rather than a free-to-play title. The current Steam catalog lists the base game alongside a growing set of paid add-ons, including the Pirates of Belerion and Skelmar Invasion expansions, plus smaller Contract releases such as The Tavern Opens!, The Beast Hunt, The Pits, Fires in the Capital, and The Fief.

The major expansions extend the campaign with new regions and systems, while the Contract releases focus on additional activities, locations, narrative content, or specialized company goals. The soundtrack is listed separately from the gameplay add-ons. Players comparing bundles should check the individual contents rather than assuming that every edition includes every expansion.

The Fief is particularly relevant for players interested in long-term company management because it adds a property-management dimension to the mercenary sandbox. It does not replace the established contract, camp, and tactical systems; it gives experienced companies another strategic responsibility to balance against travel and combat.

There is no verified current storefront rebrand comparable to a legacy edition being replaced by a new title. Searchers looking for the original PC game should use Wartales, while bundle names such as Starter Edition and The Mercenaries Edition describe package contents rather than a renamed core game.

Who should play Wartales?

Wartales suits players who want a mercenary sandbox instead of a tightly scripted fantasy adventure. It rewards people who enjoy building a roster over time, making difficult choices with incomplete information, and treating food, wages, equipment, and injuries as meaningful parts of the journey.

It is also a strong match for players who prefer tactical combat where a small positional error can create a chain of problems. The battles are not only about selecting the strongest attack. They ask you to manage engagement, movement, ability resources, terrain, target priority, and the order in which companions act.

Players seeking a heavily authored story, romance-focused party writing, or a purely heroic power fantasy may find the structure less satisfying. Wartales emphasizes emergent company stories, regional conflicts, and practical survival over a single cinematic narrative.

Its slower pace can be a benefit or a drawback. The game expects you to inspect equipment, think about profession assignments, prepare for travel, and accept that a contract may be profitable without being safe. That deliberate rhythm is central to the experience rather than an optional layer.

PC features, multiplayer, and localization

The Steam version supports online co-op for up to four players. Players can share a campaign world, divide control of the company, coordinate tactical decisions, and share money, loot, and resources. It is cooperative campaign management rather than a separate competitive mode, so communication matters when deciding who recruits, crafts, explores, or starts a risky battle.

Steam lists full controller support, Xbox controller support, Steam Cloud, Family Sharing, achievements, and Steam Deck Verified status. The interface and text are available in English, French, German, Spanish, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Simplified Chinese, and Korean. English is the listed full-audio language.

On GOG, Wartales is presented as a DRM-free Windows game that can be installed and played without requiring GOG Galaxy. The GOG feature list includes single-player and co-op, although players should confirm platform-specific multiplayer behavior before buying if cooperative play is the deciding factor.

No verified anti-cheat system, mod-support feature, or dedicated-server tool is prominently listed in the current storefront information. Those omissions matter for players comparing Wartales with heavily moddable tactical games, but they do not affect its central single-player and cooperative campaign structure.

Games with related tactical DNA

Players who enjoy the company-management pressure and permanent consequences can compare Wartales with medieval mercenary campaigns such as Battle Brothers. Both games ask you to recruit vulnerable fighters, negotiate the risks of contracts, manage supplies, and survive turn-based battles where injuries and deaths reshape the roster. Wartales is more accessible in presentation and more focused on authored regions, professions, and exploration activities.

For a more narrative-driven alternative, turn-based journeys built around a vulnerable traveling group like The Banner Saga offer a useful contrast. The Banner Saga puts more weight on linear travel, dialogue, and consequence-heavy story decisions, while Wartales gives players a broader sandbox with more granular equipment, camp, profession, and contract systems.

Wartales is less directly comparable to character-driven party RPGs because its roster is designed to be replaced, expanded, and reorganized. The emotional focus comes from the history of the company you create, not from a fixed cast that remains central from beginning to end.

Wartales FAQ

Is Wartales a new game under a different PC storefront name?

No verified rebrand was found. The current PC storefront title remains Wartales, while Starter Edition and The Mercenaries Edition are bundle names that package the base game with selected add-ons.

Is Wartales single-player or multiplayer?

It supports both single-player and online cooperative play. The Steam listing describes a campaign that can be played by up to four players, with shared company resources and coordinated tactical decisions.

Does Wartales have permadeath?

Companions can die and injuries can have lasting consequences, making roster preservation important. The exact severity of failure depends on campaign settings, including the available save and difficulty options.

What are the Adaptive and Region-locked modes?

Adaptive progression scales encounters around the company's development. Region-locked progression gives regions a more fixed difficulty structure, making the order of exploration and the decision to enter a new area more consequential.

What is included in the Wartales DLC lineup?

The current PC catalog includes the base game, major expansions such as Pirates of Belerion and The Skelmar Invasion, several Contract add-ons, and a separate soundtrack. The exact bundle contents vary, so check whether a package includes the individual expansions and Contracts you want.

Does Wartales support controllers on PC?

Yes. Steam lists full controller support, including Xbox controllers, and marks the game as Steam Deck Verified. Keyboard and mouse remain useful for managing the campaign map, inventory, professions, and detailed company menus.

Which languages are supported?

Interface and subtitles are available in English, French, German, Spanish, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Simplified Chinese, and Korean. English is the listed full-audio language.