METAL GEAR SOLID V: THE PHANTOM PAIN
METAL GEAR SOLID V: THE PHANTOM PAIN
Game
Game2023
Wartales
Developer Shiro Games
Wartales is a tactical role-playing game developed by Shiro Games and published for Windows, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox Series X/S by Shiro Unlimited in 2023. Players manage a mercenary band as it attempts to survive in a low fantasy world that is trying to recover from a plague. From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
357 reactions from 2 sources (Steam reviews, Bluesky) · newest Oct 6, 2026 · last updated Oct 7, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
45
Mixed
121 positive · 147 negative
95% range 39–51%
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 121 | 147 | 0 |
| Bluesky * | 0 | 0 | 0 |
* shown, not counted in the score (label accuracy below our 85% bar or not yet audited).
89 newer reactions are still waiting for a label.
Steam's own rating
Very Positive
30,851 of 36,139 reviews positive (all languages, per Valve)
What people are saying
Summary pending — the reactions are listed below.
Reactions
60 of 357 · most liked firstThey’ve ruined the game. It’s unplayable unless you own specific DLCs. Let me explain: At first, they only released "expansion-style" DLCs (new zones) for the post-game, but now they’ve started releasing DLCs that slot in between the base maps. This has thrown the level balance off, and their solution was to raise the level of the zones following the DLC. Consequently, if you don't own that DLC, you can't progress because there’s an absurd level jump (occurring before Ludern atm) that is…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I like the base game, but out of principle I have to say ♥♥♥♥ the devs. I don't want to encounter ads for your DLC's in the game world. If I could play the release version of your game where I wouldn't constantly run into NPCs and adventures I can't engage with I would be having a much better time. Every 20 minutes I encounter a cool location just to enter and see it's an ad and something I can't do. If the DLC isn't enabled, don't make it visible in the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ game world. If the base game…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I bought this game with hopes of actually playing it. Instead I need another $100 to buy the rest of the game... that I already supported and paid for.... Shiro Games drank the private equity kool-aid and it's been a ♥♥♥♥ show ever since. Cathay Capital invested 50mil Euros... and they want a hefty return on their investment... so the CEO forced their devs to suffer through making these DLC's. Your own teams went on strike for grueling schedules and deadlines while making these DLC's that no…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Company has turned into another Paradox. Literally nickel and diming customers now with DLC drops that are not giving any sort of increase in replay ability to the game. Last good DLC was the Skeimar Invasion. Not only this, they have game breaking bugs in the game that people have been telling shiro to fix, and they have YET to fix. Game breaking bugs that hinder people from continuing progress in the game itself. But yet they keep giving DLCs instead of fixing the base game first. Yet…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Despite the 90-odd hours I've put into this game, I just don't feel it deserves a thumbs up, unfortunately. It has huge potential and there is a lot to like, but I'm 4/5 through the main story and have touched on a few of the DLCs, but , frankly, I'm just bored by it. I started off loving the scope and variety in the game, but fairly quickly came to see it as a whole host of small problems and poor design choices. Here's why (with minor spoilers): - 4/5 of the way through the main game, I hit…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →𝙈𝙤𝙧𝙚 "𝘽𝙪𝙮 𝙊𝙪𝙧 𝘿𝙇𝘾" 𝙏𝙝𝙖𝙣 "𝙋𝙡𝙖𝙮 𝙊𝙪𝙧 𝙂𝙖𝙢𝙚." I have over 90 hours in Wartales across multiple playthrough attempts. I first played it back in Early Access, and now, in June 2026, I decided to give it another shot, putting another 13 hours into a new save. Unfortunately, it still feels almost exactly the same as it did years ago. The biggest thing I noticed wasn't meaningful improvements to the core game—it was how much DLC content is pushed in your face. For…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Honeslty, this game is really good (I've played it a lot before its release), but the price of the DLC is just atrocious. So if I were to reinstall the game and add all the new features, I'd have to pay 100 € ??? Has Shiro been bough by Paradox interactive???
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The Skelmar Expansion came out 2 Years ago, still there are bugs that make it unplayable. For example im currently at a bossfight where i cant use certain characters like the swordsman, because anytime i use their abilities the game freezes. INSTEAD OF BRINGING OUT NEW 20 EURO DLCs MAYBE U SHOULD START TO FIX THE ONES YOU ARE ALREADY SELLING FOR 20 EUROS. I enjoy the game a lot but this makes it unplayable and im really mad.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Gameplay-wise, Wartales is solid. The combat is fun, the world is interesting, and the core mechanics work well enough to keep me playing. However, the way DLC is handled actively hurts the experience. If something requires DLC, don’t put it in the base game. Let me see it on the Steam DLC page and decide if I want to buy it there. Don’t let me click on a tavern, feature, or interaction in-game just to be told I need to purchase DLC to use it. That completely breaks immersion and feels like…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The game is awesome, I really really enjoy it but the way the current DLC model is feels almost punishing to not be buying DLC as they come out as the DLC comes out in pretty fast succession and are pretty expensive. If you come back to the game after and want to play in the new content you'll find yourself paying the base game price all over again to get caught up with the new content. Combine that with the fact that a lot of the DLC feels very underbaked. I can't recommend this to a new…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →While the base game is genuinely enjoyable, the DLCs have been atrocious for the most part. The worst part is that the base game now feels like little more than a prologue, with nearly all additional areas, storylines, classes, content, and progression locked behind DLCs that are extremely expensive for an indie title. To make matters worse, the DLCs feel like the complete opposite of the base game. They come across as rushed, often riddled with bugs, short on meaningful content, and filled…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I recommend only buying this game on sale until the devs fix the well known memory leak that causes the game to crash every 30 minutes or so…. Been months and still no fix… SUPER irritating when the game crashes after important parts or after nice trait unlocks sending you back to wherever you last saved… 1 star game until that is fixed…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I’ve been supporting *Wartales* since its early days, and while I still enjoy the core experience, the current direction is becoming increasingly hard to justify. The steady flow of DLCs is, in a way, impressive—but also exhausting. It feels like new content arrives faster than players can fully enjoy the previous one, and each release comes at full price. At some point, it starts to feel less like ongoing support and more like a constant paywall. What’s most disappointing is that this model…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →very basic game. DLC milking like paradox. I regret supporting this game in early access.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Dear developers, for the love of God, please stop rushing new DLCs and focus on fixing the existing bugs for the time being. The 1.0 release wasn't perfect, but it worked decent and contained very few bugs. At the moment, every new DLC introduces more bugs than content, and I'm not exaggerating. Many of them reintroduce issues that were previously patched, and sometimes a DLC patch even causes new bugs to appear in the base game. This happened once when all world encounters were considered…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I really like the base game, Please stop adding new dlc's. Take a break and work on whats in the game please.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Terrible business practice to sell DLC at such a high cost. They gave an unfinished game then locked the rest of the updates behind a massive paywall. Hard pass this game.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Gameplay is great and everything about the game itself is great. but its not worth 150 bucks to play all of the content locked behind paywalls in the form of DLC's. what happened to Season Passes? I'm downvoting because the devs are too greedy imo.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →When I first bought and played this game in its unfinished condition I thought it had a lot of potential! Came back years later to see what they added. I wanted to see if it finally realized that potential I saw before. Instead, I come back to find out that in order to get the full experience I need to pay... another 60 dollars. Nah, very uncool.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I liked what I played before the DLC Apocalypse, but I just can't bring myself to dump +$100 on this game so I can get the complete experience, Maybe we'll see a $10 complete edition one day? I'm patient.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →spare a thought for this poor fellow on steam, who spent 130 hours managing a mercenary company in the game WarTales, only to see it all fall apart when he refused to accept the unique bonds that only brothers in arms can share
unlabelledView post →After playing for a little bit (~300h at this point), I have to say that the base game is really good and addictive. Some weird gameplay mechanics here and there but the game and the world really has a lot to offer. I recommend to all players to at least get the base game, the tavern DLC to get past the early game money issues and if you reach late game The Fief to duplicate items (so you don't have to farm gear) and some other conviences. Try to get the fief at a discount. It's pretty meh. The…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Hi ! I’m Ramo. I make video essays that are too long on subjects that are too niche. In the daytime, I'm designing some narratives for 2 unannounced games after working on Northgard, Wartales and Dune: Spice Wars. You’ll often see me exploring non-gamey crafts because I'm addicted to amateurism.
unlabelledView post →It's a nice, chill game and I’d recommend it overall, but be warned: there’s a difficulty spike around levels 8-12 that completely killed the experience for me. It basically forces you into hours of grinding in lower-level zones just to keep progressing, which I personally find tedious. On top of that, the game pushes you into making morally questionable (often outright evil) decisions if you want to advance the main storyline, with no real way to avoid them. That might not bother everyone,…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →"Great... but ultimately flawed. While I love the core experience, the combat becomes excessively belabored by the midpoint. The most egregious issue, however, is the aggressive monetization: leaving in-game hooks for over $100 worth of DLC (triple the base game's price) is a cheap immersion-breaker. Placing a prominent, inaccessible castle that constantly begs for a purchase is a crime."
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I have a 126 hours in this game. The devs need to roll back the previous community update and abandon the product. Quit while you're ahead, team, the last year has done nothing but drag this thing away from what made it amazing while loading it with bloat for the "survival crafting" addicts. They genuinely need to backup and leave good enough alone at this point, they've ruined my interest in playing or buying any further DLC. The ugly side of early access is watching companies wildly push a…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The base game is fun enough, but the DLC is almost three times the price of the base game for very little in return, barring two or three of them. I'll put no more money into this pit because who the ♥♥♥♥ do they think they are? Mfs wanna be EA so bad.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →You know it's insane when a bundle is $125+ USD. There is NO game worth that much. Just look at all the Warhammer DLC BS that is ALWAYS on sale for 90% off. It's sad that we're here. STARTER edition is $60. Just LOL. I've seen bad practices from AAA publishers (cough, Square Enix), but for someone so MID. This is wild. Don't let these guys get away with this. Hit them were it counts. The pockets. AND THEN, maybe we can get a finished product for a price that makes sense. As it…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I understand some of the gripes from longtime players here in the reviews pulling the game down to mixed overall, but god is that so misleading on the overall quality of this game. There is an absolute treasure trove on content here, even if you don't buy a single DLC. At about 40 hours in right now I am about halfway(?) done with the available content and still have tons more ahead of me. The overall gameplay loop is in credibly rewarding and very fun to engage with. Having to take care of…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Wartales is tricky for me to recommend. I really love this game, a lot. I love not being the hyper important chosen one just doing stuff that becomes important, I love turn based combat, I love little interactions between members of my troop to make random, personal stories, I love having animal companions of various types. I love the story being grounded in low-fantasy medieval style for the most part, but being loose enough for exceptions(you want a female mercenary? All fine. You want 70…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I'm not saying it's a bad game, I found the first dozens of hours enjoyable (through the base game alone), until you realise you've bought Battle Brothers with more realistic graphics and a DLC-selling strategy worse than Paradox's. I'm not completely against selling DLCs to monetize further content, but c'mon guys, this is just predatory. If you haven't played Battle Brothers, i truly *recommend. It delivers a similar experience with mods (which are free). *Yes, I'm aware I'm recommending a…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →What this game has turned into is a disgrace. The developers seem far more interested in squeezing every last dollar out of their player base than actually improving the core experience. It’s an endless DLC machine, with a new overpriced expansion every 2 to 3 months that adds very little meaningful content for what it costs. At this point, we’re already at eight DLCs, with more on the way. Instead of fixing the game, polishing existing systems, and delivering on promised improvements, they…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I have never wished harder for a "meh" option on Steam. Wartales takes 100 hours to finish but 15 hours to be done with. It has dozens of systems - none of them are bad, but all of them are paper thin. Progression is just fast enough to keep you going but never enough to be satisfying. There's always something to do, but not a single highlight. I am putting Wartales away after beating a bandit troupe 3 levels above my party. This has both exhausted the skill ceiling for the game and…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I have over 420 hours in this game. Though the game is really nice. Bought 3 dlcs in total - skelmar invasion, tawern opens and pirates of balerion. I havent yet tried any of the content from two of them, yet I fell like Im done with this game. Every time I come back to it I see a new update with new character class and a new "location" Great isnt it? NO IT ISNT. New character classes are fine, but it makes you wanna start over and develop new class together wild old ones, annoying a bit but…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I highly recommend the base game for anybody that likes strategy rpgs. Great graphics, low dependence on rng, immersive area based stories. However, I DO NOT recommend any of the DLC's unless you get them on a really good sale. Each DLC either offers such little content it should have been included in the game or is massively overpriced for the content it does add. For example, base game may include something like 4-5 regions for about $40. Then they'll charge $20 to add 1 more region.…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Played the pretty early on so there wasnt much DLC content and i rellay loved, nice story, fun progression and all in all a pretty good immersion. Wanted to start a second run now cause i havent played in a long time now in every damn place there is a NPC telling you to buy a DLC and thats completely ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →My favourite game that the devs should have stopped developing years ago. Most of the DLC is not worth it.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →you need to buy all DLCs for another ~$150 to enjoy the game. nope, thank you
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →There was a time when this game was very good, before it became riddled with DLC slop. It's a shame we can't go back
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →the base idea of the game is really good and it is engaging. Slavery, Cannibalism, Thief, Murderer, all of that is possible, ingame too! The only problem i have is if you don't own the dlcs like i do (i only have the base game, then choose adaptive difficulty, because region locked is balanced with dlcs, so you get enemies which are 3-4 levels higher because you dont have the dlc in between, where enemies are little bit more tame. This is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ and should be changed.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Monetized predatory dlc hell.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Wartales – A Great Game Losing Its Direction Wartales used to be a fantastic game, which is why I was excited to return after nearly 490 hours of gameplay, especially with the new DLC looking promising. Unfortunately, that excitement quickly turned into disappointment. The recent DLC feels largely pointless, adding boring or shallow mechanics that don’t meaningfully expand the game. Rather than offering real new content, it feels like features were added just to appear substantial. The…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Buy the basegame (when you get it for a reduced price), skip the DLCs. Its nice to sink a few hours into it every now and then but goes boring after a while. Sadly the DLC quality ranges from mid to the worst youll ever see. And they are completely overpriced for what they add.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The game has some solid mechanics and can be quite fun to play, but if I knew that the devs intended to spam DLCs and lock content behind a bunch of paywall, I never would've bought this game in the first place.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This company is becoming more and more like a second EA. WAKE UP, Shiro Games!!!! They're exploiting customers little by little by releasing DLCs at exorbitant prices, even more expensive than other good games. Not only that, the game has serious bugs that prevent players from progressing; I even lost my 100-hour save file just because I bought another DLC. But they still keep releasing DLCs instead of fixing the original game's bugs first. Another company falling into the trap of…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I got the game back in 2022. It was promising back then. Now devs use the game to milk you dry, forcing you do buy more and more DLCs. Overall it's still declining, new DLCs are hit or miss. Do not buy if you value your money.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →In my experience, games fall into three groups: Group 1 — Not for me. You start it, and within a few hours you realize it isn't for you. Years of experience and self-awareness reduce how often this happens, but it still does from time to time. Group 2 — Finished and done. You play it for roughly 30 hours, finish it, and nothing new is likely to come from a second run. Most games fall into this group. Group 3 — Hundred-hour games. The games worth your money and your time. Two subgroups: 3a…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Fun game, cool style and gameplay. I enjoy the progression BUT My only gripe so far is finding a cool location only to be met with the DLC buy screen. Takes me back to when I was a kid playing MMOs and hitting literal paywalls. It takes me out of the game and makes me feel disappointed. They could have easily just not had the locations show up in-game until you got the DLC, but instead you are constantly met with predatory advertising. "Here is this cool location, NOW PAY US MORE MONEY" like…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The base game is simply amazing. Fully recommend the base game, it is everything you want in a tactical open world RPG with a diverse and interesting set of units/skills. All the DLC is by in large, awful and a waste of time and money - Skelmar invasion is the only one worth the money. It is really amazing that Shiro took an awesome game and pumped out half-baked, poorly designed DLC....The Fief DLC is probably the most disappointing as it has so much potential, currently it is just an…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It reminded me of Mount and Blade but with CRPG/turn based combat and they pull it off well enough. Also there are various well integrated gameplay systems, including survival, crafting, arena fights, exploration, and trading which are also competent but a little boring to be honest.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →imo this is a good example for how dlc should, and shouldn't be used. the base game is fine, and if you enjoy turnbased, tactical combat, with rpg elements you'll probably enjoy it, although i do want to note that the characters themselves aren't narrative characters, like in fire emblem, but rather blank slate type characters like in x-com 2 which i find essential if a game wants character death to be a viable consequence players will accept. as someone who enjoys well designed "hard-core"…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The game no longer supports Co-op. Which would be fine if they informed you of this but they don't. So only buy if you are planning to play single player.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The goods things: - World is beautiful and was fun to unravel the maps/regions and explore. - Combat is great. - RPG/Leveling system is simple enough, it's not gonna be the main focus but engaging enough. - Story was ok, wasn't the main reason to play, It kept me engaged but I did not dwell into it, basically it was a background noise. The bad things: - Combat became tedious after around 100 hours into the game for me, especially at max level when you dont benefit from it anymore. I did…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →if finishing game requires a paid DLC, thats a NO for me dawg.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I don't necessarily hate the game. I mean, the core game mechanics is good but once you start to notice the DLCs that are required to progress the game. Then it will go sour quickly from there. So much wasted potential for this game! When it released a few years ago, it gave us a very promising future for this game, with its gameplay, atmosphere, world lore, and a lot of cool features. Who would have thought that it will be in a downward spiral to the point that a lot of us don't care anymore…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It is a great game with TONS of flaws and I'm not understating it. I'm not sure if I'm a huge fan of it or not. I have 352 hours in it but probably half or more of it was either lost or bugged. But the fact that i still wanted to finish the game and play it for another half means it must be fun. My experience: - Extreme difficulty is so much fun. Other difficulties trivialize the game. If you play for lore and roleplaying purposes, go with easier settings. If you want to challenge yourself,…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →played this game at release and decided to jump back in and see what changed. I thought "Oh I remember seeing that they made a DLC for the game" There's $80+ of DLC for a $35 game. This is scummy and should be discouraged.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Wartales is one of those sad stories that come out of the gaming industry these days. Shiro is clearly a talented team with vision - when I started playing this game it was an incredible amount of fun. The game has great mechanics and the universe they built is very compelling. However, like many gaming companies, there is one (or perhaps a few) people at the top driving their staff faster than they should, sacrificing pre-release quality control and post-release bug fixes. Each DLC has heaped…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →130$CAD of DLCs to be able to play the full game. Lol, no thanks
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I hold off from buying this game since its release. What a mistake that was. As someone that enjoys M&B series, FF, Tactics Ogre, etc, this game fill that niche of tactical gameplay with a quite decent rpg element sprinkled on it quite well. i've only bought the base game plus the tavern dlc but as of this writing, i have played for 214 hours and i've only have this game for 1 month. The only lukewarm thing i may have is that there is no overarching story, which you can say it's good or bad…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →
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