Dreadlands

Dreadlands, developed by Blackfox Studios and published by Fatshark, is a vibrant and gritty turn-based strategy game that fuses post-apocalyptic scavenging with tactical squad combat. Set in a world shattered by catastrophe and consumed by tribal warfare, it invites players to command small gangs of survivors in a struggle for control over a mysterious resource known as “Glow.” The game takes familiar tactical mechanics—cover systems, action points, overwatch—and infuses them with a sense of improvisation and personality. Rather than aiming for grim realism, Dreadlands adopts a colorful comic-book aesthetic that softens its brutality without losing its edge. Beneath the stylized visuals and humor lies a challenging, methodical experience that rewards strategy, adaptability, and a touch of calculated risk-taking. The structure of Dreadlands alternates between two layers: overworld exploration and turn-based skirmishes. On the world map, you guide your chosen faction through the wasteland, visiting towns, scavenging resources, recruiting new fighters, and tackling a range of missions. These missions can be story-driven objectives, side contracts, or random encounters with other gan…

Not terrible overall, I like the concept but not well optimized graphically. The moving animations look buggy and your character litterally gets stuck running back and forth trying to reach something in the hideout. Not usually hard to get unstuck but you may just get stuck again since it happens quite often. Worst part is, that feels unnecessary, I could have just clicked on the trader without having to watch the character try to run the few feet to actually reach him while not getting stuck... which apparently is hard, even in a camp smaller than my house. It's not exactly making the game more immersive... Also have to reset the Fullscreen setting everytime I use ALT+TAB.

12+hrs of playing (had no internet for the 1st 12hrs so my time wasn't tracked!) i got to fame 5 with the scappers, and the next main mission was, "go get this thing, and fight this other gang to get it"... the same as every other "contract". the faction quests were also basically the same too...and you can for some reason only have 1 of those at a time! also the combat was quite samey and a bit easy too, i'd not lost a single match and almost every match was won when the opponents were at broken morale state. also 100% of the starting "fighters" where male that i could tell, not that the pics are that detailed, i got a female later, but at the fame 5 mark i think 5/6 of my fighters were male. the walking around settlements/outposts etc was really jerky. there was no hotkey/keybind possible for "end turn", and also the "go to next fighter automatically" didn't work if a fighter was pinned (they were injured last turn so have 1 action instead of 2), you have to manually select them, so a few times i ended my turn accidentally cause i didn't notice that one of them hadn't gone, when i didn't want one of my others to use all their actions. the movement on the world map was weirdly jan…

All things considered, a solid and well made squad-based turn-based tactics game. Not a fan of the meta progression and reliance on multiplayer. Like the base is decent but they didn't do anything special with it. Art is also alright... It's nothing to write home about imo.

Get it when it is -95% off. It was pretty smooth. I didn't do a whole round yet, but if you like turn based board game style this one is for you!

Fatshark going back to its pre-vermintide trash roots.