Ancient Warfare 3

About

Ancient Warfare 3 is a single player role playing shooter game with a historical theme. It was developed by Jannik Nickel and was released on January 26, 2024. It received overwhelmingly positive reviews from players.

Dive into a huge sandbox full of action and customization! Choose from different gamemodes or create you own scenarios in the custom battle editor. Change the rules and the environment, place units, objects or traps, choose your equipment or spectate a battle...

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96%Audience ScoreBased on 2,185 reviews

gameplay17 positive mentions

stability12 negative mentions

Extensive customization options including map maker, unit creator, and scripting enabling creation of unique battles and scenarios.
Active development by a passionate solo developer and a supportive, creative community with abundant workshop content.
Versatile gameplay allowing for various eras, game modes, and the ability to play as units or watch large-scale battles.

Steep learning curve, especially for scripting and map making, which can be challenging for new players.
AI is simplistic and sometimes unintelligent, lacking strategic depth and causing repetitive or unchallenging battles.
Performance issues with lag and limited unit count on some systems, impacting experience during large battles.

gameplay
44 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
39%
47%
14%
The gameplay offers extensive customization, varied units, and sandbox-style mechanics that appeal to fans of battle simulators, with deep scripting and modding support enhancing replayability. However, it can feel clunky and unpolished, with slow units, basic gun and melee mechanics, occasional bugs, and some removed features detracting from overall satisfaction. While creative and engaging for some, others find the gameplay boring or lacking complexity, though ongoing development shows promise.
- “If you know the game Tabs (Totally Accurate Battle Simulator), think that but with somewhat less smooth movement on the soldiers, more detailed creation mechanics, and even ways to make something like an RTS, something very slightly like Skyrim, horror maps, or even just a diorama.”
- “It has in-depth scripting mechanics that are so complicated and non-linear that I would consider it its own game engine in some ways.”
- “The customizability and variety of units, objects, and terrain makes this game a very fun sandbox experience that could possibly offer endless gameplay.”
- “The gameplay is very clunky and boring, with lots of small glitches and bugs throughout. The AI is trash, and the battle editor is glitchy as well.”
- “The gameplay has zero complexity nor satisfaction to it.”
- “You have mechanic-action, semi-auto, and full auto guns, but every gun in their respective category works the exact same, with only minor tweaks to magazine size, damage, and fire rate.”
graphics
28 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
46%
43%
11%
The game's graphics feature a blocky, polygonal, and somewhat nostalgic art style that some players find charming and fitting for its sandbox nature, while others feel it lacks polish or modern appeal. Its visuals are generally regarded as simple but effective, supporting extensive customization and modding without being performance-heavy. Overall, the graphics are praised for complementing gameplay and creativity rather than realism or graphical fidelity.
- “The community content is impeccable and I highly recommend you buy it with its small price, tight-knit community, nostalgic graphics, and the pure heart the developer put into it. This is the best sandbox game on the market.”
- “I enjoy the blocky and polygonal aesthetic of the graphics engine, and the dismemberment and destruction within the game overall is pretty cool. For the scale of it, the gameplay paired with the copious ability to modify the in-game units and content allows for a lot of replayability. Overall, an impressive indie game and a passion project for the developers.”
- “It's massive range of units to choose from, excellent battle mechanics, simple yet fun graphics, and a very large amount of possible structures to use make this game a must for any fan of custom battle simulator games.”
- “On the downside, the blocky graphics didn’t really fit my taste, and the style didn’t click with me.”
- “The gameplay is boring, the graphics are ugly and the weapon equips are confusing.”
- “There are some handy graphics settings that can help somewhat, but the game can definitely run quite slow.”
story
19 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
21%
63%
16%
The game offers no official story campaign but shines as a creative sandbox where players can design unique story-driven missions, maps, and battles. Users appreciate the flexibility to craft their own campaigns and enjoy community-made, often lengthy story content. It is ideal for those who enjoy building custom narratives alongside combat and strategy elements.
- “Ancient Warfare 3 invites you to employ every ounce of creative thinking and skills you have to craft fun maps, epic static battles, or forge complex, story-driven campaigns, complete with fully scripted missions that allow players to do just about anything.”
- “I highly recommend this game to anyone who likes sandboxes, shooters, RTS, and heck, some people have even created long story-driven campaigns that take hours to complete.”
- “These days there's even enough opportunity in the game to not have warfare at all; instead story or linear maps.”
- “This game is frustrating because the campaign has no actual levels; I expected a story campaign, not a campaign made by others.”
- “☑ no story”
- “Now as you will see through other games this is an indie game kind of like Minecraft but with armies and a bit harder to customize; the lack of built-in story content makes it feel incomplete.”
optimization
16 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
19%
62%
19%
Optimization is a mixed aspect of the game, with many players experiencing performance issues, lag, and sluggish gameplay, often requiring lowered graphics settings even on decent PCs. However, recent updates have improved optimization noticeably, making the game run more smoothly for some users. Overall, while optimization still needs work, consistent updates show promise in enhancing performance.
- “Update: I noticed a huge improvement in game optimization; in my opinion, now the game's worth the price.”
- “Well optimized with fun gameplay that doesn't get old and has consistent updates.”
- “All in all, this has the potential to be a great game with enough quality of life improvements and optimization.”
- “I used to play it a lot but now it's horribly optimized, plays poorly, has lame community content, and as far as I know they got rid of all the fun parts of the game (simple melee mechanics, working ground and air vehicles).”
- “The gameplay is sluggish and awful, as is the performance.”
- “In terms of performance and gameplay, the game is extremely lacking.”
stability
12 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game suffers from frequent bugs, glitches, and occasional freezing, particularly during map editing, AI behavior, and battles involving many units. Stability issues, such as crashes and loading screen hangs, are common and detract from the overall experience. While some players still enjoy the game, these technical problems remain a significant drawback.
- “The game glitches every time I play with over 70 men; not sure if it's a glitch for everyone or just me.”
- “The game freezes at random times while playing, forcing me to restart.”
- “There is an immense amount of glitches and bugs, and the building system barely even works.”
humor
10 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The humor in the game is widely appreciated for its funny ragdoll physics, amusing character actions, and entertaining battles. Players enjoy the lighthearted, chaotic combat and creative custom battles, making it a fun and accessible experience for all ages.
- “Funny block dudes shooting each other.”
- “Fun fights and funny action.”
- “Again, TABS is a great, funny, and cheap game.”
music
4 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
75%
25%
Users appreciate the game's music as part of its overall engaging experience, noting that both sound effects and music are well-implemented and enhance enjoyment. There is also interest in accessing older music tracks from a previous version for nostalgia.
- “I learned how to model in Blender, learned to script, make music, and design units.”
- “Love the game; every update brings new cool things. Not a lot of bugs that I found. I think that it should be more. It's only $11 right now and they could put it up for $30 easy. Love the game, get it! Oh, one last thing: to anyone who would like to hear the old music, go to itch.io and get 'Ancient Warfare 2'—it has the old music.”
- “It's not the game settings either, all the sound effects and music are turned on.”
replayability
4 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
25%
25%
50%
The game offers strong replayability through extensive unit customization and creative freedom, appealing especially to fans of sandbox and indie titles. However, some players find the AI slow and the weapons unsatisfying, which can diminish the replay value and lead to occasional boredom. Overall, replayability is a highlight but may be hindered by certain gameplay mechanics.
- “I like this game for many reasons, one of them being that it inspires creativity and is overall fun to play. With you being able to do whatever you want, it has a lot of replayability.”
- “The AI is slow, the weapons are unsatisfying, and for me it has no replayability.”
character development
1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The character development aspect is praised for enhancing creativity and improving skills in map and character design. Users find it a valuable tool for skill growth in these areas.
grinding
1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Grinding in the game is intensive and time-consuming, often requiring significant effort and multiple attempts to progress effectively.
atmosphere
1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Users praise the atmosphere for its immersive and diverse settings, ranging from fully-functional casinos and zero-gravity combat to detailed WW1 battles and unique simulators like trauma teams. The variety of environments, including arcadey maps and intricate health systems, contributes to a richly engaging and authentic experience.
- “People have made fully-working casinos, zero-g combat, airships boarding each other with glider troops, a WW1 hilltop battle with impeccable atmosphere, arcadey maps, and a trauma team simulator complete with a detailed limb-to-limb health system.”

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133h Median play time

176h Average play time

30-300h Spent by most gamers

*Based on 13 analyzed playthroughs

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Frequently Asked Questions

Ancient Warfare 3 is a role playing shooter game with historical theme.

Ancient Warfare 3 is available on PC, Mac OS, Windows and Linux.

On average players spend around 176 hours playing Ancient Warfare 3.

Ancient Warfare 3 was released on January 26, 2024.

Ancient Warfare 3 was developed by Jannik Nickel.

Ancient Warfare 3 has received overwhelmingly positive reviews from players. Most players liked Ancient Warfare 3 for its gameplay but disliked it for its optimization.

Ancient Warfare 3 is a single player game.

Similar games include Ravenfield, Ultimate Epic Battle Simulator, Scrap Mechanic, Rising Front, Brick Rigs and others.

Ancient Warfare 3

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gameplay

graphics

story

optimization

stability

humor

music

replayability

character development

grinding

atmosphere

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