Back to old glory.. mostly

Jagged Alliance is one of those niche games, which have a die hard (sometimes over the top critical) followership .. and is subsequently plagued by a stream of sub par follow ups, since the glory days, which were Jagged Alliance 1 and 2.
One of the main problems was, that it requires quite a bit time and love to bring all the details, which made the first two games so great, into a worthy sucessor. Something not really usual anymore in nowadays game making.. sadly.

But finally the little studio called Haemimont Games tried the shoe, which many others couldnt make to fit and lo and behold, it mostly fits. The mercs have still their personalities, the fights are tactical, the story is useful (and offers even quite some choices) and it is already quite modable (with full mod support on the way... way to go so, you so called AAA games like BG3 or Starfield ;) ).

Of course nothing is perfect, they forgot more or less to implement traders (which was thankfully resolved during further development) and the game spikes quite abruptly in difficulty, after a specific moment in the storyline. If you reach that too early, it can even mean game over for your mercs.

These are just little setbacks though, compared to all the small details and also nods to the predecessors, which make JA3 easily the strategy game of the year and finally a worthy sucessor of the series.

Conclusio: My personal game of the year 2023.

Point Score: 9/10

Back to old glory.. mostly Jagged Alliance is one of those niche games, which have a die hard (sometimes over the top critical) followership .. and is subsequently plagued by a stream of sub par follow ups, since the glory days, which were Jagged Alliance 1 and 2. One of the main problems was, that it requires quite a bit time and love to bring all the details, which made the first two games so great, into a worthy sucessor. Something not really usual anymore in nowadays game making.. sadly. But finally the little studio called Haemimont Games tried the shoe, which many others couldnt make to fit and lo and behold, it mostly fits. The mercs have still their personalities, the fights are tactical, the story is useful (and offers even quite some choices) and it is already quite modable (with full mod support on the way... way to go so, you so called AAA games like BG3 or Starfield ;) ). Of course nothing is perfect, they forgot more or less to implement traders (which was thankfully resolved during further development) and the game spikes quite abruptly in difficulty, after a specific moment in the storyline. If you reach that too early, it can even mean game over for your mercs. These are just little setbacks though, compared to all the small details and also nods to the predecessors, which make JA3 easily the strategy game of the year and finally a worthy sucessor of the series. Conclusio: My personal game of the year 2023. Point Score: 9/10