Urtuk The Desolation

Review: Urtuk
TL;DR: A very well executed turn by turn strategic RPG that feels pretty sandboxy. I am going to petition for a Kickstarter for Urtuk 2 !
Pros:
A ton of player agency to create and customize the most formidable rag tag gang roaming the wastelands. Weapons, mutators, skills to discover and level... Urtuk has them all
Everything you encounter has a chance to be recruited. Werewolf fighting alongside an Elder Vampire under the cover of a human sniper ? It is called a Tuesday around here
No RNG, fights are games of chess. You can blame only yourself when you lose
Difficulty for all tastes
Theoretical replay value (see below)
Cons:
We need MOOOAARRR, Urtuk is a never ending sandbox with a stat check for final boss. The dev did flesh out the lore, but... not in the game. There should be so much more to do, rather than playing the same 10ish missions
The above prevented me and I guess others to replay the game with another faction in another difficulty. Over 45h was enough for me. That is a real shame because there are many factions and some unlocks
Clunky inventory and team management, seriously

Well... not a bad game for sure. It probably had an eye on Darkest Dungeon during its development, which is not bad. However, there are a few things that really make the game less enjoyable that it should be.
First of all, the gory bloody aspect, which doesn't bring any value in such a game.
Second, the map does not rotate, and is extremely difficult to read sometime. So you end up sending your troops on one side of the map, before realizing that the terrain is blocked. Bummer!
Third, you cannot see your characters' equipment and characteristics during a fight, but is clearly annoying and I cannot see a good reason for preventing this.
Last, for some reason, the difficulty is really not linear. The third level, The Ruins, is much more difficult and unforgiving than the previous ones.
Bottom line, if you can cope with the above, that's fine, but just keep in mind the (lack of) readability of the map! Enjoy Urtuk!

I strongly recommend this game if you're into strategy games. The setting was creepy-cool and the combat was challenging. The sheer volume of class options, weapons, and skills, was nice and allowed you to switch up your tactics based on your preferred play style. This isn't a Dark Souls level of frustration, though some pitfalls might annoy you if you are not the patient type.
The Good:
Tons of class options and skill options lead to many interesting combos.
Fights were challenging but not too frustrating
Story was decent
Surprises on the battlefield kept combat from being too dry and predictable (terrain shifts, various NPC infestations, traps, hazards, and reinforcements to name a few)
Boss fights were fun and challenging. Each one had a gimmick you had to work around.
The Bad:
Friendly AI was abysmally unhelpful to the point where it was simply a liability. The experience was so much better when friendly NPCS gave you control over their faction and then let them do it themselves.
The terrain was, at times, more challenging to navigate than the fight themselves. But I chose to simply ignore it by the team I ultimately beat the game with.
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My end-game party consisted of 2 WarMonks, a Guardian, a Warlord, Forsaken Axeman and Forsaken Shieldbearer with Stamina as my main stat in all of them. The Warmonks were built for stuns, the Shieldbearer was built to capitalize DPS on those stuns, and the rest manipulated enemy movement with push, pulls, and rams. Worked great for me and pretty much kept the same team by mid 3rd chapter all the way to the end.

It's like Battle Brothers, but a lot more METAL, and a lot less frustrating
if you've ever played Battle Brothers and raged because you had a good run ruined by some absolute BS RNG, then this is the game for you

Awesome Game it's like Battle Brothers a little only very dark and not as hard. Very good game . Just started no real story just killing .

Positioning actually matters! It actually feels like you have to use tactics!
Call me crazy but I actually prefer this over battle brothers.

Love this game! Doesn't look too complicated at first but if you want to thrive you'll need to understand the game, the combat system and all the characters strengths and weaknesses. Love the fact that you can play different species, they all have their own taste. Item customisation and mutators are simple but again you need to know where you are going because there s no infinite resources to upgrade them. A bit on the grindy side but it s not too bad unless your playing at the higher difficulties (which are challenging)