This may have been a big year for gaming, with Nintendo, Blizzard, and Square Enix putting out their big guns, but even smaller game companies have been making some serious moves this year as well.
Today marks the 23 year return of the Jagged Alliance franchise, a turn based strategy game series that was ahead of its time, but finds itself having to play catchup today.
The original Jagged Alliance released in 1995, so far back that it came on DOS, while Jagged Alliance 2 released on Windows in 1999. The franchise moved across different game developers and publishers, but today, we finally have Jagged Alliance 3, developed by Haemimont Games under THQ Nordic.
Jagged Alliance 3 is a turn based strategy that retains the very old school elements of 4X, as well as role playing. You command a squadron of mercenaries, of varying backgrounds and personalities, waging war in various small assignments, like say, overthrowing governments.
So far, that may sound like XCOM, but there’s something different about this strategy game that the current boom of indie and AA strategy games haven’t stumbled upon yet.
Jagged Alliance 3 has a humorous spin to it. In specific, each mercenary is written to play off of each other, giving players an unusual reason to keep coming back.
Some mercenaries don’t get along at all, while others are perfectly sympatico. Every time you start a game up, a different set of mercenaries are available, so that if you want to know how each one gets along, you have to play again and again.
Aside from all this, Jagged Alliance’s core gameplay has held up very well. While some aspects of Jagged Alliance 3 do show their age, Haemimont’s attempt to recreate the classic experience has earned them a lot of kudos.
As of this writing, Jagged Alliance 3 is rated Very Positive on Steam, with a staggering 2,178 of 2,815 reviews giving this rating. On GOG, it has a 4.1 out of 5 from the fan reviews over there. The Metacritic is somewhat misleading, but still has a strong 81 rating, with 21 out of 25 reviewers giving it high scores up to the 90s. Lastly, the OpenCritic rating is Strong, with 83 critic averages and 88% of critics recommending the game.
What do the reviewers say? IGN’s Leana Hafer calls it a “flexible, challenging, approachable throwback turn-based tactics game in which the only thing that feels truly dated is the humor.” PC Gamer’s Dominic Tarason cites its strategic and RPG layers as a highlight that distinguishes it from its newer peers.
The richest praise comes from WCCFTech’s Chris Wray, who actually says it’s a series that ‘has its soul back.’
Jagged Alliance 3 is available now on PC, on Steam and GOG. You can watch its launch trailer below.
