Yonan
Broken Arrow is Steel Balalaikas first game and a fun but rough entry in the modern tactical RTS genre. Published by Slitherine and released June 20, the game has undergone two years of sporadic closed and open beta tests during its development. These beta tests helped immensely in polishing the core gameplay which is in an excellent state and a lot of fun. Sadly, there are a few bugs, the interface is a bit rough, and the game modes did not launch in a state most players would expect which has led to a mixed reception. Whether you should pick up Broken Arrow yet is a little complex currently.
The gameplay is deep, polished, and very satisfying – it feels like the combat all works as it should, potential balancing issues aside. While there may be personal preferences for faster or slower combat, more or less units to be controlled, more realistic or more arcadey, the combat works well. Units follow orders, path correctly and behave as you’d expect. Personally, I would prefer a higher time-to-kill for most units in most situations, but I play games like Command: Modern Operations so I’m not the majority of the market by any means. I long for the day we get a game with the depth of CMO and the graphics and playability of Broken Arrow but until then, playing both will have to suffice!
Balance between factions seems solid as there is currently a 48-52% win rate between them which is remarkably close for a game at launch given how asymmetric the factions are. For divisions and units, it’s hard to tell currently and much of it will be personal preference. Between unit types, one common attitude among the community is that infantry are too vulnerable to common weapon systems in cover. However, despite thinking that myself, it’s too early to tell for sure and infantry are still pretty essential regardless. I personally find a lot more success with Russian troops – KA-52 Alligators, the ability to spam effective cheap light armour, an infantry unit with both AT and AA, a lot more autocannons overall and a number of other things just seem to work better for me than American Strykers, LAVs, and so on.
The primary problem with the game for me is the lack of “proper” skirmish. At launch you couldn’t play skirmish single player – which was patched in on day 1 – and you still can’t play with AI on your side either, leaving you with 1v1 on maps designed for 5v5. It feels like the developers missed something any of us in the betas thought was a no-brainer. They say allied AI and smaller maps are coming but we do not have a timeframe for it yet. This has removed the primary enjoyment I get from games like this, not wanting to deal with the problems that come with multiplayer despite the upsides it brings. This left me basically with a poorly designed 1v1 skirmish and the campaign. It speaks well for how good the gameplay is that even the 1v1 on 5v5 maps was a lot of fun, it’s just a shame you can’t 5v5 (with AI) on them, or 1v1 on small maps. Related is the lack of other game customisation options such as no adjusting the income rates, also no different map modes such as king of the hill or wave defence.
There are some other problems and conspicuous absences too. The lack of pause and save functionality is also a substantial detriment to some players in single player modes especially. There is no preset “grid” key binding option, leaving you to manually rebind everything and suffer the conflicts that will ensue from not supporting it natively. Not having a grid control option in an RTS is like not having mouse look and WASD movement in an FPS. Something that annoys me most battles is the camera zooming towards a unit if you mouse over it while zooming, making you reset your camera orientation – that should be optional or on double click only. These are only minor gripes however and won’t impact everyone.
Aside from the combat itself, the other highlight of Broken Arrow is the Roster Builder, which is an endless source of entertainment. It’s not just selecting the units you want; it’s selecting a pairing of two out of five specialties and then customising the loadouts of each individual unit. Do you want your infantry specialised for 1,000m standoff fights with a stealthy battle taxi to get them into advantageous positions, or a close combat team with shotguns, SMGs and recoilless rifles carried by an up-armoured mini-tank? Are you going to cover them with the most expensive dual purpose stealth fighter, or have a cheap drone to scout and then call in an interceptor fitted for anti-air, or an A-10 designed to remove that entire grid over there as needed? Even before you get to the actual combat, the theory crafting options here are endless and I already made fifteen decks before this review with just the five US and five RU specialties in game currently. Speaking of which, it sounds like China is going to be added next which should be a lot of fun too. Hopefully it comes with a “Pacific allies” blue force too such as JP/KR/AU, not to mention European nations and anyone else too. The possibilities here are endless and I will *always* nerd out about them.
Performance in battle is generally very good with no slowdowns or crashes due to heavy action, much improved over the betas where there were substantial problems early on. Campaign missions however seem pretty buggy and can sometimes break from either scripting errors of the mission objectives or AI, or the fps can drop down to about 12 and stay there. With no save functionality these are both highly annoying, but I didn’t notice any bugs in the skirmish gameplay at least. The interface works well but feels a little rough around the edges and is missing the proverbial bells and whistles you’d see in a AAA game.
Overall, Broken Arrow is an excellent entry to the genre and will contend head-on against the masters of the genre, Eugen Systems and their flagship WARNO operating in a very similar modern military setting. It is an evolution more than a revolution that feels excellent to play and so long as the game receives the long-term support promised, it’s going to stay part of my gaming roster for a long time to come. If single player skirmish is all you’re after, or if the other problems mentioned feel like deal breakers currently then it’s probably better to wait. If you like some mix of campaign, jury rigged single player skirmish and multiplayer 5v5 then you’ll find a lot of fun in the highly polished, addictive combat that Broken Arrow offers.
This review utilised a key provided by Slitherine through Heaven Media and Broken Arrow is available now for $AU73.50 ($US50) on Steam.
#roundtablecoop
Chris Inglis
