War Mongrels joins the small but growing list of titles that had a terrible launch but later became some of the best games in their respective genres due to the developers’ determination to do right by their community; Bravo Destructive Creation, Bravo!
Singleplayer.
Co-op Multiplayer.
While War Mongrels is a very nice looking Desperados-like, and after almost 18 months of extra development, is a mechanically sound and content-rich game, there is only one thing that sets it apart from other games in the genre, and that is the ability to take direct control over your squad and engage in isometric action combat.
However, only one mechanic truly sets it apart from other games in the Real Time Tactics genre: the ability to take direct control over your squad and engage in isometric action combat.
While I love Real-Time Tactics games and sneaking around as much as anyone else, taking direct control over a character or group of characters and engaging in combat with the enemy feels fantastic and reminds me of one of my favourite games of all time, Army Men: Toys in Space, which, in my opinion, is an underrated classic of the real-time tactics genre and one of the best games in the Army Man franchise.
I would love to see other games in the genre adopt a similar mechanic going forward.
While it will never replace the traditional stealth-based Real-Time Tactic mechanics, having the option to “Go Rambo” is certainly one way to bypass a tricky mission, even if a slow and steady approach would have been the better route.
At launch, War Mongrels felt like a bad early access title; despite being marketed and released as a fully developed product, many (myself included) felt we had been lied to, and most developers would have walked away from the mess that was War Mongrels. However, Destructive Creations showed remarkable maturity and not only apologized for the state of War Mongrels but also took a fine-tooth comb to it, fixing over 500 bugs and incorporating quality-of-life improvements and comprehensive controller support in response to user feedback.
The result of their hard work is that War Mongrels is no longer a terrible game but is one of the best Real Time Tactic games on the market. I would love to see Destructive Creations release another title in the genre, applying the knowledge and experience they earned the hard way due to War Mongrels’ terrible launch and brilliant rise from the ashes.
War Mongrels is one of the only RTT games and the only Desperados-like RTT game to feature an online cooperative mode. Unfortunately, it does not support cross-play or party invites. As a result, the community almost ignores the feature, making finding open lobbies impossible for players looking to meet new people to play with.
While War Mongrels is an AA title, it has AAA-quality voice acting, which helps to immerse the player in the excellent narrative and adds a sense of gravity and emotion to certain missions and encounters that would otherwise have been less impactful with poor or no voice acting.
War Mongrels looks and plays like a more action-focused Desperados game.
While Mimimi Games is likely to remain the king of the genre, if Destructive Creations can release more games like War Mongrels right now, they have a chance to share the throne, if not claim it entirely.
Is War Mongrels better than Desperados III? No, but it’s equally good, and both titles have something to offer the genre.
I must preface this by saying I am not the biggest fan of War Mongrel’s developer, Destructive Creations. I find them needlessly edgy, and their game Hatred is the perfect example of a game that is frankly sick. To think that some people have chosen to buy and play it, let alone that any developer decided it was a good idea to make, is baffling.
However, in recent years, they have started to “grow up” and understand that a PEGI 18 title doesn’t have to be focused on slaughtering innocent civilians for fun. While Ancestors Legacy was pretty dark and violent, it’s a drastic improvement over Hatred. That trend continues with War Mongrels, which is content-wise on par with other PEGI 18 titles.
With the release of War Mongrels, the developers emphasised narrative quality over the low-quality shock value content that some of their other titles, such as Hatred, were known for.
Because of this change of focus, War Mongrels is a very high-quality and respected title, unlike some of their previous works, which were more popular with alt-right trolls than the wider gamer community.
Don’t get me wrong—War Mongrels is set during one of the darkest periods of human history and addresses some pretty dark topics; however, it does so in a tasteful way, and because of this, I have no issue not only covering War Mongrels but also recommending it to fans of the Real Time Tactics genre.
War Mongrels is a real time tactics video game developed and published by Destructive Creations, it was released on 19 October 2021 and retails for $44.99.
War Mongrels is available on the following platforms: PC, Playstation 4, Playstation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S.
As of September 2024, around 5000 people play War Mongrels on a fairly regular basis.
War Mongrels is barely active, meaning that while finding full lobbies is possible at peak times in populated regions, matchmaking times are likely to be very lengthy, and for those in less populated regions, finding full lobbies may be difficult.
War Mongrels offers the following matchmaking options:
The following peripherals are officially supported:
War Mongrels is rated PEGI 18+ and contains:
War Mongrels had an appalling launch and was one of the lowest-rated titles I had ever reviewed for much of its first year.
However, I am happy to say the developers have managed to turn it around, and War Mongrels in 2023 is far from the broken mess that shipped at launch. Because of this, I can now heartily recommend it to fans of the genre and to fans of WWII-era games in general.
