A low-fantasy grid crawler where wounds stick, gear coverage matters, and fights can snowball fast.
Today I’m introducing another title from the kind I absolutely love. To hell with ultra-stylized visuals, give me, any day of the week, a project that’s a bit rough around the edges graphically but promises real depth under the hood.
Dungeons & Warbands is an upcoming low-fantasy dungeon crawler RPG from solo developer Omer Erenturk. It’s built around fast, turn-based movement and attacks on a tactical grid, but it doesn’t lock that combat into a single “run-based” dungeon loop.
The core pitch is a wider open world with multiple kingdoms, settlements, ruins, caves, and full dungeons that can be visited or raided while the player either travels alone or runs a small warband.
Where it gets more specific is the way fights are meant to punish sloppy decisions. Damage is localized to body parts, so taking a hit isn’t just “lose HP,” it can cause injuries that affect performance until healed.
One rough engagement can leave a key companion limping into the next room, and a couple of unlucky results can spiral into a wipe even if the party “wins” the exchange. The game also leans hard on armor as gear is described as layered; cloth, gambeson, chainmail, and plate, covering specific body parts rather than acting as a universal shield.
Each layer has different resistance values against slashing, piercing, and blunt damage, so matchup knowledge matters. A chain shirt might blunt blades well, but do less against blunt force, which pushes players toward scouting enemy loadouts, swapping kits between fights, and thinking about coverage gaps like neck and head.
Skills include direct combat tools like Riposte, Cleave, and a Charge that can carry a character across the grid for a momentum-style hit, alongside stance switching for offense or defense.
Outside of combat, the warband hook aims for a sandbox rhythm. The world is presented as something you move through for quests, trading, and reputation, with roaming enemy warbands that can trigger open-ground battles across forests and meadows.
Companions can include knights and bandits, but also non-human allies like goblins and minotaurs. One interesting detail is the idea that conquering a dungeon can change what it’s good for, since the listing suggests it may become a place to hire new allies from the subjugated inhabitants.
Dungeons & Warbands is planned as an Early Access release on PC via Steam, with the developer estimating roughly one to two years in that state, while also warning that the timeline could shift because it’s a one-person project.
The stated goal is to use Early Access to expand content and features, but also to do the unglamorous work: polish, balance, and make the combat feel “challenging but fair” across the layered armor, weapon damage types, skill trees, and enemy stats.
Two disclosures that matter for expectations. First, the developer says the project uses AI-generated concepts as a starting point for art, with each draft then hand-painted and finalized before it goes into the game.
Second, the content notes emphasize stylized violence and a body-part damage presentation that can include blood splatter and visible wounds on portraits, with a toggle that can disable blood effects in favor of a less intense “puff” animation. Below, I share the trailer.
