As your tree trunk-limbed mechanic, his oaken legs rippling under his dungarees, sets a row of sunken-cheeked, hollow-eyed Nazis on fire with a makeshift flamethrower, and your lab-coated doctor follows up by yeeting a vial of debilitating probably-not-piss-but-I-like-to-think-it s-piss at an SS officer s forehead, a thought may occur. Considering history is a design constraint here, brutal but poignant turn-based tactical RPG Warsaw does a fantastic job of making classes and abilities feel as interesting as any sci-fi or fantasy setting.

It’s the history of the 1944 Warsaw uprising, to be exact. The game places you in charge of the doomed but determined Jewish resistance and asks you to fight tooth and nail for a cause that, tragically, you already know is destined to fail.

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The Warsaw Uprising isn’t the easiest of settings for a game. The obvious thing is to wargame it – make it a detached military sim that doesn’t risk being too heavy or stressful. Warsaw is going for something a bit more close range, though.

It’s a turn-based tactical shooter that’s as much RPG as strategy game, about managing morale and resources as well as getting the job done and keeping your people alive. A tall order, and Warsaw does it with panache. It’s out now.

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As you may have surmised from a bunch of very non-hardware-related interviews I’ve done recently about the likes of the excellent Nowhere Prophet, Sparklite, Unrailed, the return of Super Meat Boy and what’s next for Astroneer, I was packed off to PAX East a couple of months ago. I was mostly there to host a panel about the best video game weapon of all time (the winner was the Portal Gun inside> Hitman 2’s homing briefcase, in case you were wondering), but I also got to play a bunch of cool games as well. Here are five of my absolute favs.

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Looking a fair bit like Darkest Dungeon only with Nazis instead of fishmen, Warsaw is coming our way on September 4th, developers Pixelated Milk announced today. It’s a turn-based tactical battler set during the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, when Polish resistance groups battled German occupiers. The real Warsaw Uprising ended with so much death and destruction, and I do wonder how much Warsaw the game will commit to that. The devs do say we’ll encounter both historical and fictional scenarios as we build a resistance group and fight for the city. Hmm! For now, here, peep the new trailer.

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