Drawer 01 · review
The Battle for Wesnoth
Turn-based fantasy strategy on a hex map, with seventeen campaigns and a calm, deliberate pace.
Our score 5/5
Our take
Wesnoth has been made by volunteers for more than twenty years, and it shows in the best way: it is finished, generous and quietly confident. You move small armies of hand-animated pixel-art units across a hex map, one turn at a time, and every unit has its own strengths, terrain preferences and time of day it fights best in.
The single-player side holds seventeen campaigns, from a young prince reclaiming his throne to a band of survivors crossing a desert, and each one is a chain of scenarios that takes an evening or two. There are also fifty-five maps for games against friends, over a network or passing one computer back and forth.
It is the most strategic game on our shelves, and also one of the most relaxed. Nothing happens until you end your turn, so you can stop and think, or stop and make a cup of tea.
A first sitting
- Download the stable version from the official site.
- Start with the tutorial, then the campaign A Tale of Two Brothers, which is short and gentle.
- Use the Help menu: every unit and terrain is explained in-game.
Where to stop
Scenarios end cleanly, and the game saves at the start of each one. Decide before you begin how many scenarios tonight holds; one is plenty for a weekday.
