A Strange And Rat Filled PC Throwback
If you grew up playing weird little experiments on Newgrounds and other Flash game sites, War Rats will feel instantly familiar. It is a new PC game that captures that chaotic early 2000s browser game energy, only now wrapped in a proper Steam release with sharper art and far more absurdity.
War Rats is a two dimensional side scrolling mix of shooter and real time strategy. You control a rat soldier in a never ending war between rat kind and invading rat cyborgs. While you run, jump and shoot in real time across the battlefield, you are also managing production, calling in different troop types and placing buildings at fixed points. Everything pushes toward a classic tug of war style objective: get one of your engineers all the way into the enemy base to claim victory.
The result is a hybrid that feels unlike most modern polished releases. It is deliberately strange, experimental and proudly rough around the edges, very much in the spirit of those old Flash passion projects that did not care about focus groups or marketability.
Gameplay: Side Scrolling Chaos Meets Strategy
Moment to moment, War Rats plays like an action shooter embedded inside a lane based strategy game.
- Side scrolling shooting You move on a two dimensional plane, firing at enemies, tossing grenades and trying to survive the constant barrage of fire from the opposing side.
- Tug of war structure Both your army and the enemy automatically spawn and march forward along the battlefield. Your job is to tilt that balance in your favor with smart unit choices and aggressive plays.
- Base and building management At fixed nodes across the map you can construct different buildings. Some generate resources, others buff units, teleport troops or unlock new tactical options.
One of the most defining mechanics is friendly fire. Any shot that hits your own troops or turrets hurts them. Because everything is locked to a single two dimensional plane, it is almost impossible to shoot past your own soldiers without hitting them. This forces you to play like a reckless action hero rather than a safe commander hiding behind the lines. Often you have to sprint in front of your own forces to get clear shots at key targets such as enemy turrets or UFOs, then retreat before you are shredded.
It is a clever way to keep you active and involved, but it can also be frustrating. You will inevitably blow up your own defenses with a mistimed explosive or catch half your army in the blast of a grenade. When that happens during a hard fought stalemate it can feel brutal.
The strategic layer also takes some time to understand. New unit types drip feed in over the campaign, but the game offers little explanation of what each does best. You get a large list of buildings from the start, from resource generators to shrines that buff passing troops to teleporters that can reposition units, but it is on you to figure out how they all fit together.
This design encourages experimentation and trial and error. For players who enjoy learning through failure, that can be satisfying. You will constantly be asking yourself questions like:
- How many building slots should I dedicate to economy versus combat support
- When are fast but fragile units better than slow, tanky ones
- Where should teleporters go so that troops actually use them effectively
However, because the missions are tug of war battles, misunderstandings in your build or army composition often lead to long stalemates. When you do not quite know how to break the enemy line, fights can drag on with lots of casualties and little progress. Breaking through after a long grind feels genuinely relieving, but the path there can be tiring.
Style, Humor And Flash Era Spirit
What really sets War Rats apart is its tone. The game is fully committed to being as rat themed and immature as possible, in a way that feels almost nostalgic for anyone who remembers early internet humor.
Everything has a rat twist. Weapons include ratzookas and double barreled ratguns. Battles take place in locations like Rattingrad and Mount Killaratjaro. Units have delightfully silly names like Rocket Rats and Tophat Toprats. The art style is surprisingly realistic for such a ridiculous world, which makes the gore and visual gags hit harder.
The game constantly throws offbeat details at you. Fallen soldiers explode into over the top gore that is quickly swarmed and cleaned by helper rats. Before each mission your character goes through a gear up montage that ends in a very unnecessary close up of their anatomy. The skin selection room in your base is literally a creepy hall full of loose skins. It is juvenile, gross and very self aware about all of it.
Underneath that humor there is a clear vision. War Rats is not trying to be a safe, mainstream, polished strategy shooter. It is intentionally weird, personal and specific, the sort of project that a small team or solo dev makes because they think it is funny and fun, not because a spreadsheet says it will sell.
For PC gamers who miss that wild west era of downloadable and browser games, that is the main appeal. It feels like an artifact from the Newgrounds age that somehow slipped through a time portal and landed on Steam. It has rough edges, mechanical quirks and balancing frustrations, but it also has personality and heart.
If you like experimental strategy shooters, do not mind some crude humor, and feel nostalgic for the days when games were smaller, stranger and more personal, War Rats is worth a look on PC. It may not be for everyone, but for the right player it is a strangely charming return to a lost era of gaming.
Original article and image: https://www.pcgamer.com/games/strategy/this-rat-obsessed-strategy-shooter-makes-you-look-at-a-pair-of-furry-testicles-before-every-mission-and-youve-got-to-respect-that/
