Forged Battalion

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Forged Battalion is a single player and multiplayer real-time strategy game with warfare and science fiction themes. It was developed by Petroglyph and was released on August 14, 2018. It received neutral reviews from players.

Customize your unique faction in a new take on real-time strategy as you fight in a variety of skirmish, solo, and multiplayer battles. You are not only a commander, but also an engineer – so you have ultimate control over your faction’s units, factories, superweapons and economy.

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53%

Audience ScoreBased on 689 reviews

gameplay48 positive mentions

story22 negative mentions

Classic RTS gameplay similar to Command & Conquer with a nostalgic feel
Unique and fun faction/unit customisation system allowing players to build their own army
Good performance and eye-pleasing art style with quality soundtrack by Frank Klepacki

AI can be overpowered and sometimes cheats, making some campaign missions very difficult or frustrating
Limited unit variety and tactical depth; gameplay often boils down to mass unit spam and rushing
Tech tree progression can be grindy and unlock system limits early gameplay and faction customisation flexibility

story
224 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
5%
85%
10%
The campaign story in the game is widely regarded as weak, forgettable, and poorly delivered, serving only as a basic framework for progressing through missions. Campaign missions are criticized for lacking variety, feeling like skirmish maps with unbalanced difficulty spikes and unfair AI advantages, often making gameplay frustrating and grind-heavy. While the underlying concept of unit customization is praised, the story and mission design fail to engage players or provide meaningful narrative depth.
- “The story mode is rather basic and is built around a loose and forgettable plot about a post-apocalyptic resistance against a supposedly evil military power known as the Collective; campaign missions boil down to normal skirmish matches with dialog on various multiplayer maps, though some have additional conditions like defend the tower.”
- “The story concept is actually kinda cool, and it controls like you expect, with the tech tree system being awesome and allowing unit customization.”
- “I also enjoyed the challenges that the campaign missions gave, with mission 5 on the hardest difficulty giving me trouble until I worked out a strategy to beat it by turtling with infantry and building aircraft to take out the bases.”
- “The campaign AI cheats heavily, most missions are fighting 1v3 skirmish with AI that has complete bases, super weapons and super units at the start while the player has to start from scratch; making it feel like the only way to win is by exploiting the AI or knowing which tech to cheese with; but that is still difficult because the AI also ignores fog of war and spams said super weapons.”
- “The story is one BS mission against overwhelming odds after another and all the missions and skirmish battles come down to how fast can you spam a blob of units.”
- “The campaign is a wildly varying set of missions that are not really worth the bother and it's fun with friends against the AI in skirmish battles.”
gameplay
221 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
22%
72%
6%
The gameplay in Forged Battalion closely mirrors classic Command & Conquer-style RTS mechanics with a focus on base-building and unit production, enhanced by a unique faction and unit customization system outside of matches. While the core gameplay is solid, responsive, and fast-paced, many reviews criticize it for shallow strategic depth, repetitive unit spamming, grind-heavy tech progression, and lack of in-game tutorials or guidance. Overall, it offers nostalgic RTS fun with interesting customization ideas but is hampered by balance issues, limited mechanical variety, and an underwhelming, skirmish-like campaign.
- “The unit/army creation stuff is super interesting and an awesome foil to the classic genre gameplay.”
- “Gameplay mechanics is simple yet fun, classic RTS game.”
- “Great devs, quality artwork, crisp gameplay.”
- “No explanation of mechanics, no guidance on strategy, and no proper tutorial to ease you in.”
- “Gameplay quickly boils down to unit spam: build units, get attacked, defend, push back, then repeat.”
- “This means the main gameplay hook the entire game is relying on to keep interest rapidly falls flat, which is compounded by the campaign boiling down to amassing a ball of units and razing the enemy bases every single map.”
graphics
130 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
40%
52%
8%
The graphics receive mixed but generally positive remarks, praised for their charming, stylized, and colorful art style reminiscent of classic RTS games with modern touches and smooth performance. However, some users find the visuals too cartoonish, basic, or lacking variety and polish, with certain graphical elements and effects feeling plain or rushed. Overall, the graphics are seen as a solid indie effort that complements gameplay, though not universally impressive or cutting-edge.
- “The graphics are great, with beautiful explosions, bullet tracers, and shells flying to the air.”
- “Performs extremely well and the graphics are aesthetically pleasing.”
- “Clear bright graphics, with a lot of things happening on the screen and special effects galore.”
- “Look in forums on Steam, to see if I am the only one with this issue... turns out the game is dead, with no development since release... now if the game was finished, that would be okay, but the graphics settings are just entirely insufficient.”
- “I've heard they used their own engine, but the graphics feel like standard cookie cutter Unity/Unreal generic fare.”
- “Oh how I wished that I had not spent my $10 on this game. I could have spent it on anything else but this game feels not only slow as a game, graphics feel boring and uninspired, music feels like it's too generic, and when you play this game each game is slow just to put to perspective a single game can last 20 mins or more.”
music
87 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
40%
52%
8%
The music in Forged Battalion, primarily composed by Frank Klepacki, receives widespread praise for its nostalgic Command & Conquer-inspired soundtrack that captures the classic RTS atmosphere. However, some players note a lack of variety and dynamic in-game music changes, leading to repetitive or occasionally disengaging audio experiences. Overall, the soundtrack is considered the game's standout feature, though it could benefit from more tracks and improved integration with gameplay events.
- “The soundtrack is also excellent, it has that nostalgic sound from popular Command & Conquer games.”
- “The music perfectly captures the Red Alert 2 feel and it makes me so happy.”
- “The music (by the legendary RTS game composer Frank Klepacki) is spot on.”
- “Oh how I wished that I had not spent my $10 on this game. I could have spent it on anything else, but this game feels not only slow, graphics feel boring and uninspired, music feels too generic, and each game can last 20 minutes or more.”
- “So prepare yourself to turn off the music in game and at this point just play your own music in the background; it would keep you more entertained than the soundtracks used in this game.”
- “The soundtrack is pretty decent so far and is largely reminiscent of the old Command and Conquer tracks, but from what I can see there only seems to be around 4 or 5 in-game songs total, while the menu and victory/defeat screen themes sound like they were taken from cut content for 8 Bit Armies.”
grinding
32 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Grinding in the game is widely criticized as tedious and excessive, especially in unlocking tech tree upgrades and progressing through the campaign, which often requires repetitive missions to offset steep difficulty spikes. Players find resource acquisition and tech point farming monotonous, with limited engaging methods to speed up progression, leading to frustrating micromanagement and artificial difficulty. While customization and design ideas have potential, the overall grind detracts significantly from the gameplay experience.
- “The steam workshop has a small collection for your grinding needs.”
- “Weapons in the campaign means that it not only has a headstart on you in every mission but could be stupid op, the story is poorly and dully delivered, as fun as the tech tree system is it feels lacking and it's very grindy feeling to unlock things, the limit to how many blueprints you can access in match hurts the awesomeness of customizing your units and your combat effectiveness.”
- “Actually unlocking upgrades for your faction is a case of grinding matches to earn points and then spending them in a tech tree - thankfully, there aren't any microtransactions tied to this, but that doesn't make it any less laborious.”
optimization
23 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
43%
44%
13%
Optimization is generally praised, with many users reporting smooth performance and stable frame rates even during large-scale battles on mid-range systems. However, some note occasional stuttering and express a desire for further improvements in performance and graphical optimization. Overall, the game is well-optimized but could benefit from continued refinement to enhance stability and efficiency.
- “Performance: R5-1600 stock, 16GB DDR4 RAM, 1070 Armor - full max graphics, 4K resolution, Win10 64bit: solid 60 FPS even during the big fights!”
- “The game runs smoothly even when there are hundreds of units on screen.”
- “Even when I had an army that virtually filled the screen (there doesn't seem to be any unit population limits), I barely had any loss of performance, and that was in a heated game with 3 AI players.”
- “Suffering optimization.”
- “Couldn't get the game to save more than one 'unique' unit to my army so I was stuck with highly unoptimized units against a more powerful AI.”
- “Although I do appreciate the visual style, I am quite displeased with the performance.”
stability
8 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game suffers from numerous stability issues, including frequent bugs and glitches that hinder gameplay progression and unit variety. Players report significant troubleshooting time due to these problems, with many core features like the unit creator and event triggers being unreliable or broken.
- “Abandoned and hopelessly buggy.”
- “The 59 minutes 'playtime' is me troubleshooting and trying various fixes.”
- “Not only that, but the events in the game which trigger a progression of the round are totally buggy.”
replayability
5 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
60%
60%
Replayability receives mixed feedback; while some users highlight the game's strong unit customization and user-created maps as positive factors, others feel the overall content is lacking and hope for more engaging maps and additional updates to enhance lasting appeal.
- “This isn't exactly it, but it definitely has the same vibe while giving more replayability in terms of unit customization.”
- “Plenty of replayability.”
- “The ability for users to create their own maps and upload them to the workshop is a nice touch which could extend the game’s replayability and address my previously stated criticisms, but I feel the devs should put some more effort into making the maps more interesting and should add more in future updates.”
- “The game lacks content and replay value.”
- “Negative: built on concept of replayability.”
- “The ability for users to create their own maps and upload them to the workshop is a nice touch which could extend the game’s replayability and address my previously stated criticisms, but I feel the devs should put more effort into making the maps more interesting and should add more in future updates.”
humor
3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The humor in the game is characterized by amusing and quirky elements, such as ridiculous unit designs and upgrades like oversized heatsinks and exaggerated toxic cloud generators, alongside funny unit voices and quotes that add a lighthearted touch.
- “Funny unit voices and quotes are one of the things that add humor to the game.”
- “Unit designs are a mixed bag: some upgrades look cool, while others are hilariously bad—like the heat management armor, which is a giant heatsink with a fan on the front of the tank, or the toxic cloud generator that's basically a large fan with poison behind it.”
- “It's funny that after I quit, the first thing I saw on my Steam was a community guide on how to 'farm' stuff.”
monetization
3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game's monetization avoids microtransactions, relying instead on a grind-based system to unlock upgrades, which players find laborious. Additionally, lack of post-launch support and advertising has led to a decline in the player base, negatively impacting the competitive multiplayer experience.
- “Petroglyph are giving themselves a reputation for shoving RTS games out the door and then leaving them to fend for themselves with pretty much no support or advertising to keep the player numbers up, which could be a bad deal if you're looking for competitive multiplayer.”
- “Actually unlocking upgrades for your faction is a case of grinding matches to earn points and then spending them in a tech tree - thankfully, there aren't any microtransactions tied to this, but that doesn't make it any less laborious.”
- “The game largely petered out after that 'supply drop' and I checked the Steam forums every now and then but beyond more advertisement for the competitive scene, the game died.”
atmosphere
3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game's atmosphere is generally praised for its distinctive and solid design, supported by well-crafted maps, music, and sound. However, some users note it falls short compared to the highly atmospheric standards set by Petroglyph's earlier titles like Tiberian Sun.
- “The map designs are solid, the atmosphere is solid, the music and sound are solid.”
- “Its own distinctive atmosphere.”
- “A problem that most Petroglyph games experience, especially painful since they are creators of such fantastic, atmospheric masterpieces like Tiberian Sun.”
emotional
1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The emotional experience is largely negative, with initial gameplay causing frustration and a lack of fulfillment, leading some players to prefer other available games.