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Game
Game2025
Broken Arrow
Developer Steel Balalaika
Broken Arrow is a large-scale real-time modern warfare tactics game developed by Steel Balalaika and published by Slitherine. The game features American and Russian factions with a unique army building system and deep units customisation tool. The game was initially announced in 2019, during a crowdfunding campaign on the Russian crowdfunding platform Boomstarter. Broken Arrow was released for Windows on 19 June… From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
334 reactions from 3 sources (Steam reviews, Bluesky, Mastodon) · newest Oct 6, 2026 · last updated Oct 7, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
41
Mixed
112 positive · 160 negative
95% range 35–47%
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 112 | 160 | 0 |
| Bluesky * | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Mastodon * | 0 | 0 | 0 |
* shown, not counted in the score (label accuracy below our 85% bar or not yet audited).
62 newer reactions are still waiting for a label.
Steam's own rating
Mixed
19,643 of 36,154 reviews positive (all languages, per Valve)
What people are saying
Audience reaction is split: 112 positive vs 160 negative reactions.
Many players praise the game's core mechanics, graphics, and potential, calling it "one of the best modern military RTS games released in years" and noting "wonderful graphics" that look amazing at 4k on an OLED monitor. However, a significant number of negative reviews highlight severe flaws, including a missing save feature that makes the campaign "completely unusable" and a "dire state" with cheaters, desyncs, and server problems. [1][19][18][7][25]
The community is frequently described as "rotten" and toxic, with some players alleging that the developers are "incompetent" or "lazy" and that the game is being ruined by an esports focus. Others defend the game, saying "average reviewers are too negative" and that the devs "work hard to improve it." [4][10][24][30][20][11]
Praised Gameplay and graphics · Potential and core mechanics
Criticised Lack of save feature · Cheaters and technical issues · Toxic community · Developer incompetence
Summary drafted by an AI model from the 36 reactions it cites ([n] links open each post), then checked by code: every paragraph cites real posts and every quote is verbatim. Written Oct 7, 2026. Method
Reactions
60 of 334 · most liked firstIt's finally time for me to write a review, which I probably should have done a long time ago. I had waited patiently for this game for 5 years, and had been a Patreon supporter for STB for multiple of those years, including prior to Slitherine supporting the game as a publisher. I played the earliest alphas that I recall being available to patrons, all the closed and open betas, all of it. I provided feedback and felt that I was not shouting into a void. I at one point spent a couple of hours…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Edit: I got an email congratulating me for the amount of awards this post got lol thankyou guys. I thought of something else to add. Take a look at their roadmap (that they'll totally stick to and not delay anything for sure) when tasked with adding their "accomplishments for the ENTIRE YEAR" they released they listed: Penalty for leavers, The ability to surrender, Anti Cheat and the ability to fight against bots with bots. In an RTS game that released in 2025. What a JOKE. These guys have set…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →No save feature makes the game completely unusable. I spent 3hrs on the 1st campaign level, it was 1am and had to turn it off... The campaign level had at least 3 parts to it. I'd like a refund. Game mechanics are great, but no save means no play.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Broken Arrow Is a Great RTS That Is Slowly Losing Momentum I love Broken Arrow. That's exactly why I'm writing this review. At its core, Broken Arrow is one of the best modern military RTS games released in years. The deck-building system is excellent, the unit variety is impressive, the visuals are great, and the combined-arms gameplay creates some incredible moments. The foundation is there for this game to become the definitive modern warfare RTS. The problem isn't the core…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Stop turning Broken Arrow into a f*u*ck*ing esport. I bought a combined-arms warfare game, not some sweaty APM ♥♥♥♥-measuring contest. Let the tryhards have ranked and stop f*u*ck*ing the whole game for everyone else.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →FLX genuinely needs replaced, and I don't recommend buying or playing this game until he is. He consistently has shown he has no idea what he is doing. All of the major pain points in game design remain ignored, and even if the game achieves some semblance of "balance", it can still be miserable to play. And it is.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →AI for skirmish battles finally releases, and half way into my battle i get disconnected from the server (timeout) and get sent to the main menu. I was the only player. ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Broken Arrow could have been a great game – instead, it currently stands as a textbook example of how to lose your community’s trust. The biggest issue is the sheer number of promises that were never delivered. Before release, the game was marketed as a deep, realistic, and highly tactical experience. In reality, large parts of the game feel unfinished or poorly implemented. Core systems don’t fully work together, important features are missing or underdeveloped, and the overall balance often…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Game with unlimited potential in the hands of incompetent developers. The game is riddled with cheaters, players who abuse game mechanics, and a generally toxic community. I have followed this game since its early development, but I cannot recommend it in its current state.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →1. Cheater 2. Desync 3. Server problem/kicked out of match 4. Memory leak Hey dev, its been a year since your game released. When are you going to fix all of this problem. I've met at least 5 cheater within 2 days
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I believe I may finally uninstall this game. I have been with the game since the beta, and through all of the BS updates I have stuck through because I enjoyed the level of RTS this game provides. The updates kept "fixing" the game, when in reality they just provided more and more unbalanced content while also butchering the few enjoyable aspects remaining. Then the studio owner themselves gave this long message about how he's getting involved and I was excited about the game possibly turning…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →PTE Patch Review 08/08/2026 You will not be even a single bit happy for 8/10 games if you play this game competitively. The other 2 gives you +1 elo and then you keep losing more afterwards to one of the following: Meta Slaves: balance wise the game has not fixed, or even to a point enhanced: - Unstoppable nuke spam (B-2), can nuke you twice a match/player - Infantry blobs that RU can barely match (lack of fast, large troop carriers) - USMC is the most OP spec in the game BY FAR (well I guess…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Despite having hundreds of hours in this game, i cannot recommend buying it. While Broken Arrow has good foundations, there is just a multitude of issues making the game unenjoyable. Let me start of by saying, if you are looking for a single-player experience, Broken Arrow is not for you. The game's campaign mode is mediocre at best, with most levels feeling like a slog to get trough and only a handful feel well designed. At the time of writing of this review, the campaign also lacks…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →*Never Played PvP, Only PvE in Scenarios and Comp Stomps (as best as the game can give you), with and without friends. Also tried a bit of the scenario editor. Oh, where do I start... maybe performance, This is a Unity Game, which means you have the Unity Performance Overhead. This game runs worse for the graphics and "scale" that you get. Being A Unity Game, Range scaling is Whack which also unintentionally makes certain units worse/better... Scale/Scope, The Scope of the game confuses…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The devs are lazy, due to the lack of dev support this game is dead. 80 ppl in search now. Had such potential, sad to see such a good game die due to incompetence. Update: 4 games "tried" to play all 4 dropped due to someone not being able to connect. Just waiting on another developer to take this concept and do it right, these devs have no clue what they are doing.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Pros: Great game, with wonderful graphics. It looks amazing at 4k on an OLED monitor. Cons: I'm a PVE only player. So the lack of the ability to make a save in the campaign is a big drawback and has put my playing the game on hold till this feature is implemented.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Awesome game, been enjoying campaign mode, tho if you have a life, you can't finish the mission in one go, the lack of a SAVE button makes it very frustratting and dissapointing. How is a BASIC Solo compaing feature missing ? I like the game and i want to play it, but i simply dont have half a day to spend in order to finish the mission, if not i am going to loose all my progress.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It's just not fun anymore. Despite enjoying this game for hundreds of hours, I have not been able to responsibly recommend it to any on-the-fence customer due to its limited content and uncertain future. Practically speaking, the game only supports a single mode: ranked multiplayer 5v5. In my opinion, this is the worst of all worlds as competitive players have to make do with 80% of their success or failure being out of their control and casual players get the pressure of 4 unstable…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →First open beta test was 10x times better than what we have now. When I was playing test I felt like a player, after release I fell like a tester.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game is like a really hot but really toxic girlfriend. For every four-five fights and arguments you absolutely lose that rip your heart out and make you hate her, you get that one super, awesome, absolute great, hollywood level love making and it feels like a win. Then its right back to getting absolutely betrayed as some Chinese hacker makes you hate your life and question your life decisions on spending 60 dollars on this pile of hot garbage before you ultimately go back to WARNO. You…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I'm forced to put text here so I'll try to keep it simple, though I could write a novel on all the catastrophic failures of this game down to almost every element. The game is struggling with technical issues that its been working through for a long time. They're a small studio, I get it, so I won't give them too much flak for it. But gameplay wise...it's horrific. It's designed to attract players new to the genre/subgenre, but it has almost no staying power because of the absolutely baffling…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →My God what have you done to this once great game. On top of senseless changes making it almost comical moving away from some kind of realistic grounded stats to give something to work from to now more stupid changes due to a crying minority. Something that seems to happen more often in games these days. Now we come to the disgusting cheating problem, while the PTE went live the "standard" game while still live had a large influx of cheaters and I mean instead of maybe 1/2 every 25/30…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I currently do not recommend the game. I will come back to it when they finally add the ability to save in single player. It ridiculous that you have hours long missions and don't have a save option.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game has so much potential but is just so unbalanced it's almost like the devs do it intentionally. The major schtick used to be the U.S. beat Rus in Air and Armor and Rus beat U.S. in infantry and support/Arty. Now Russian units are so over powered that the stats breakdown shows Russian's win significantly more than the U.S. players in every area and with every deck. This game has a lot planned for it but they need to fix balancing before this game becomes abandoned. Some options: -…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I want to love this game, but as a primary single player RTS player, I cannot recommend it until there is a save feature.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Game has incredible potential, unfortunately it's made by the worst dev team I've ever seen
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Nonsense. The developers are braindead. Every two games, someone leaves the match 10 minutes in, and there is still basically zero punishment for leavers — a YEAR after release. How is this supposed to be taken seriously as a competitive game? The game is overall unbalanced as ♥♥♥♥, and instead of fixing the fundamentals, the developers keep pushing this ridiculous esports direction. Esports? Seriously? The competitive experience is a joke when players can simply abandon matches with barely…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The Developer team has made promise after promise to fix, re-balance or rework the game and failed to meet any of the promises. The developers of this game hosted 3 Betas prior to release and failed to fix fundamental issues brought to light by each beta. Each match, brings more and more disappointment from the last, where network desynch cause constant frustrations - units dying form an explosion a mile away, units not following orders, units ignoring or the game placing the order no where…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Broken Arrow is an amazing concept, and a game that sucks for 100's of hours. FLX is a good visionary, but a horrible game developer. I've been very passionate about the game since the first public demo in 2023. But there are serious issues inside of the development team, and they are too stubborn when it comes to some of the feedback. The game has undergone continuous graphical downgrades for no real performance benefit. The specs for both nations feel like they were designed by different…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Great PvP game. Community is full of terminally online bellyachers. Performance could be better on Linux.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Cannot recommend this game. Had huge potential, and still does, just needs a decent Dev team to put their time and effort into it. Multiplayer: Cheating is rampant, and Devs are doing nothing about it. The decks are extemely unbalanced. People just leave or surrender whenever they start losing, so you can't even play matches properly. And there is pretty much no penalty for leaving, or any boost for the players that remain. There is no in game voice chat either, so noone can organise and…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game is currently a pure disappointment. It was promised to be an RTS game with COOP, PVP, PVE and campaign. Most of the scenarios are complete BS and break apart after 15-30 minutes of gameplay (if you get it to work in the first place). The only thing kind of playable in this game is the sweating and crying lobbies of multiplayer. If your own team or the enemy team doesn't just surrender after 15 minutes of gameplay just because their only push was wiped out as they were driving into an…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →There is a serious issue at development level of this game. I don't often write reviews for games unless it's a joke or a bit of fun, but Broken Arrow was the one game within the last year that I had seriously hoped would be my new obession. However, the lack of updates, genuine disregard for communication and the frankly laughable lack of transparency has been nothing short of frustrating. In short, the game is horribly balanced and still to this day, plagued by bugs and issues that have…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →the game is wonderful, i'm really touched that devs support disabled players. apparently, in almost every match i've played, I've been playing with people with moderate to severe intellectual disabilities, without eyes or hands. It was a terrific experience ;,)
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →game needs hella work current strat is just to sit in your back line spamming arty that has zero counter, if you try to push or destroy it your whole team just gets ddosed and you get a penalty for "leaving" also recon and stealth is the most inconsistent thing ever ♥♥♥♥ my chud life twin 💔
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game has the potential to be the best RTS game in a decade, sadly it is plagued with one of the most toxic communities I have EVER seen. If you can get past all the 2y olds with permanent cheetos dust covered fingers then you are met with some of the most painful gameplay ever. You could perfectly and methodically move through a city door to door just to have the enemy team pull the equivalent of chucking the chess board across the room in the form of 4 nukes in a row. On top of that half…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The anti-cheat system in this game is a joke. Once your ELO rating exceeds 2000, you'll encounter a horde of cheaters. When I send videos of enemies using cheats to the official channels, they don't issue any bans. Their servers frequently crash, and during normal matches, you'll be suddenly disconnected from the internet and unable to reconnect. The game system will then automatically ban you for 5 minutes because you abandon a match.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Review by [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/34633003-Gaming-Masterpieces/lists/] Gaming Masterpieces - The greatest games of all time on Steam. Is this game a masterpiece? No, even though it was the most anticipated real-time strategy game of the year with over a million wishlist entries on Steam. A NATO exercise with 40,000 soldiers (and tons of equipment) in Lithuania, while just a few kilometers away the Russians are also conducting a similarly large exercise? Nothing can go…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Devs are incapable of balancing the game or correcting basic exploits
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Amazing game, rotten community (compared to awesome communities like Helldivers 2). Now that the anti-cheat has been improved, the game is better than ever, just don't go on Reddit and get hung up on all the complaining.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Don't mind the mixed review, get a buddy and start beating the ♥♥♥♥ out of each other. The game is good, really good.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Out of all of the wargame type games out there, this is the only one I enjoy the PvP multiplayer with randos. Let me explain. It is simply because the game is designed to let you have a chance the entire game. I love how the battlegroup/deck building works. In other games, you basically get X amount of a unit for a battle. If you loose them all, then you are finished with that unit. You don't get anymore. This game instead asks "how many at maximum do you want to spawn" with a hard cap for…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I have given this game SO MANY CHANCES. I really didn't want to give it a negative review, so I quit the game and waited 8 months to see if devs could fix anything but it has become abundantly clear they are completely incompetent. TL;DR the game is overrun with cheaters and every single match has HORRIBLE desync (like a full second or sometimes 2 seconds, absolutely insane) This is because the incompetent , smooth brained devs made EVERYTHING client side. Cheaters can edit the…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I don't understand how you guys keep fumbling this. You laid such a fantastic foundation for a game with a pretty solid UI, interesting deck building system, very pleasant graphics, and pretty good audio design. All you had to do was listen to the playerbase's feedback regarding the PTE, stabilize multiplayer connectivity and reign in the anti cheat, then work on opening the game up more to workshop content and adding more factions. You guys are a very experienced developer,,, and there's…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →After 270 hours of playing i can say that The game is in a really bad state because: There is ONLY 5 Vs 5 ranked mode available with just constant shelling and bombing, cringe cheaters, leavers, incompetence, randomness, and all u do is resuply units and press bomb this with ur artillery. The point system encourages full on brainless rushes at the end phases. The maps are designed so that u cant even influence most of it, ♥♥♥♥ happening way right but u on left so its good luck with that... i…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I've defended this game pretty hard since it's launch...but this last update has ruined it for myself and lots of other friends. we've all uninstalled the game. the unit balancing is way too broken now. we have RUS IFV's that do more damage and have more armor than NATO tanks. they give RUS cheaper unit values and more unit counts but dont give NATO units the capability to counter them. they make nato units worse than its RUS counterparts but 2x more expensive. if the devs would realize…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I never write reviews. This is literally my first time I have ever written a review. I feel compelled to do so in this dire state of the game. I want to start by saying, everyone needs to chill the f*ck out. I understand irl is a b*tch at times, but stop letting your negativity bring the community and potential new players down. Devs, please get your sh*t together. Have you not learn over the years that your player base is what keeps your bills paid and what truly matters when doing a job…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I don't get why the community is hating on the game so much right now, maybe its because America has a much higher win rate than Russia right now, which is fine, mirror matches are a thing, in the next update they'll make changes to try and balance it again. I've seen loads of people complaining about cheaters and i haven't seen any myself, maybe the cheats just aren't obvious, but i feel like a good portion of people complaining about cheaters knowing where the stuff is etc probably just…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →NOT RECOMMENDED Playtime: 50 hours Modding Status: Locked down tighter than Fort Knox. Multiplayer: A Cheater’s Paradise. After 50 hours of gameplay, the verdict is crystal clear. Visually, the game is an absolute stunner. The graphics are gorgeous, and the explosions look like they were directed by Michael Bay on an unlimited budget. From the unit modeling to the smoke effects, you really feel like you're in the thick of a modern war. But sadly, that's where the honeymoon ends, because the…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Do yourself a favor and never play multiplayer unless it is with friends.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Just keeping it short, most people review bombing the game are just complaining because of of the PTE patch not being fully added. One it had Many issues on it's own and wasn't as amazing as everyone says it was. two, the Commuinty has grown overly toxic and is honestly the worse part about this whole game. I still think this is one of the better Wargames around, I massively prefer it over Warno and others alike it. Does it have it's problems? Yes, is it the end of the world? No.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →With the new paid DLC I now see this is another pay to win game especially compared to the free DLC earlier. I know the devs play this game, I know they have more than enough skill in the game to know how op some of their new units are. I know they got feedback from players in playtest. And they said they don't want to make it paid to win. So I expected some last minute changes and waited till the DLC officially out and I see this is just like one of these gacha game. At least most gacha game…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →average reviewers are too negative. The dev teams merits better. The game is good, the community is not good. Game is enjoyable and Devs work hard to improve it. If you enjoyed world in conflict, you will enjoy this game.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I must admit that first, I was a bit worried about which direction this game is going, but during past weeks, it seems a decisions were made that solves many issues. I can recommend the game now :)
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →With developers who seem to be chronically tone deaf and show their biases, it's best not to expect any future content, balances, or patches for this game. The presence of cheaters and poor gameplay design choices only adds to the uncertainty about the game's future. Even though the Devs have acknowledged the problems, they seem to be sitting idle and letting the game die. The single player experience is a buggy, subpar one, and the multiplayer component is showing signs of decline. This is…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Been playing this game since the first single player test launch. Instantly loved it, such a great RTS game. The gameplay, the sound, the unit customization, the core combat, just phenomenal. I love getting into this and just brawling for 45 minutes straight. Picking apart the enemy defence, and countering attackes, calling in air strikes and bombs, spearheading with tanks, room clearing with infantry. I will always argue this game is one of the best RTS games, but all this time i have been…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This is probably the best RTS game I have ever played. I have about 8000+ hours in RTS games over the years and the variety of units, map design, game balance, etc... is some of the best Ive ever seen. Ive read a bunch of the negative reviews and I was very confused as to why they were so negative and here is my conclusion... Most of the negative reviews I have seen seem to be beginner RTS players or people who don't understand ballistics and the way some weapons are meant to be used which…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Broken Arrow – Strong potential, but frustrating design choices I want to start by saying that the first two hours are not enough to properly judge a complex RTS like Broken Arrow. This is exactly why some of its design decisions are so frustrating, especially for new and solo players trying to learn the game. The biggest issue is the lack of a pause function in skirmish mode. I fully understand and agree that pause should not exist in PvP multiplayer. That’s perfectly fine. However,…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I really dont understand how they managed to fail to deliver some of the most basic things after years of work and delays to then launch a mess at very high cost relative to other similar games. I bought the game day one (which i never do and it costed me around 100$CND) which i now regret deeply. The game went from having a small community of people excited about having a non-official spiritual successor of World in Conflict with a vibe more closely linked with older more singleplayer focus…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I received this as a Birthday present in June 2025 I really liked the game in the beginning it had problems at the time but it was new and I love RTS I really enjoyed the Campaign I felt with the American Campaign it was fun cool toys but I really enjoyed the Russian Campaign I felt like the story was a lot better at the time I would have recommended this Right now due to a varying of reasons I recommend against buying this game 1. The Baltic Battalion has been delayed twice now there was a…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →
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