Wartorn is a real-time tactical roguelite by Stray Kite Studios, a team headed up by industry veteran Paul Hellquist. Hellquist has had an impressive career run: he served as the creative director of Borderlands 2, a lead designer for BioShock, and a lead designer for SWAT 4, among other projects. Though he cut his teeth working on first-person shooters, Wartorn couldn't be farther outside the usual. In fact, Wartorn couldn't be farther from the idea it evolved from—a free-to-play multiplayer title, as Hellquist revealed.
In a conversation with The Best War Games, Hellquist spoke about Wartorn's earliest iterations, before it took shape as the tactical roguelite currently in Early Access. He also weighed in on the team's inspired approach to roguelite game design and how each run is made to feel distinct.
Brutal, Intimate, and Clever: The 'Core Aesthetics' Behind Wartorn
The Best War Games chats with Stray Kite Studios co-founder Paul Hellquist about the central themes behind Wartorn, the upcoming roguelite strategy game.
Wartorn's Unlikely Start as a Multiplayer Game
Initially, the team was developing the game with an understandable aim of attracting a publisher, so the project took shape as a multiplayer free-to-play title. However, it's often better to create something authentic and passionate, as games developed this way can attract an audience of players looking for exactly what it offers. Understanding this, Hellquist says the team pivoted toward what they were truly interested in: roguelite tactics. Hellquist says:
"It evolved from a bunch of different angles. We had worked on a different version of the game for a while. It was multiplayer and free to play, and when we decided to dust it off, we realized we were doing some features because it was what we thought a publisher wanted instead of what we actually wanted to make. So we pivoted the whole design toward the rogue-lite tactics game. Our team loves rogue-lite games because of the consequences that every decision can have on the outcome, as well as the growth they provide – not only in gear and stats, but also in player skill.
We then went from there and started adding elements like a world ravaged by war to help contextualize all of the fighting, but we wanted to do something that wasn’t about the war itself, but about people surviving the war around them and trying to reunite their family. That eventually led us to the Oregon Trail-inspired road-trip elements of the game, and suddenly, we realized we had something really different on our hands."
Wartorn's additional elements then came online one after another. A warlike setting to justify its tactical real-time combat, but an intimate story about survival to bring a more personal perspective and a stronger attachment to units within the game.
How Wartorn Blends Real-Time Tactics With the Roguelite Formula
There are plenty of real-time tactics games floating around the genre, but few of them delve into roguelite progression, and this is where Wartorn finds its niche. Players embark on a unique path through the overworld map, similar to progression through Slay the Spire's branching paths, acquiring a variety of resources and upgrades to improve the chances of a successful run. As Hellquist describes:
"Taking nods from other titles, we have a lot of different resources to collect on a run and spend in different ways to level up your capabilities, whether it be the heroes’ weapons, spells, their family members, or improvements for your entire fighting force.
Next, there are the events and encounters that happen on the road. These happen in different orders, and you can get many different results from each of them. This encourages players to explore the events to learn all of the possible outcomes. The more knowledge you have, the better decisions you can make in the future.
Combat on maps plays out differently every time because the make-up of the enemy forces and the player’s caravan is different on each run."
In classic roguelite game fashion, every run of Wartorn is made unique thanks to the potential makeups of the player's forces and the ever-changing encounters they'll be pitted against. It's an engaging loop for real-time tactics fans seeking a challenge that asks them to master its systems, rather than merely mastering its levels.
- Developer(s)
- Stray Kite Studios
- Publisher(s)
- Stray Kite Studios
- Early Access Release
- June 17, 2025
WHERE TO PLAY
- Genre(s)
- Strategy, Roguelike, Action
