Dead Monarchy (v18)

A harsh low-fantasy campaign unfolds across the Midlands, where a mercenary captain chases arena glory while trying to keep a fragile company alive. Dead Monarchy is a demanding open-world tactical RPG built around hard consequences, scarce safety nets, and the constant risk of losing soldiers who took time and money to train. Its mood sits closer to a grim military simulator than a power fantasy: victories feel earned, casualties hurt, and a single poor decision can end a promising run. The central objective is to climb through increasingly dangerous arena bouts and bring down the region’s reigning champions.

Travel between settlements, accept paid contracts, recruit fresh fighters, buy provisions, and investigate places such as ruined keeps, crypts, caves, and old battlefields. Each discovery shifts to a separate tactical battlefield where positioning, terrain, weapon range, and squad composition decide the outcome. Combat supports sizable forces of up to 18 mercenaries, with elevation influencing accuracy and melee engagements shaped by flanking, retaliation strikes, and attacks triggered by careless movement. Your captain fights alongside the company, but their death ends the campaign outright, while every hired warrior remains permanently dead once lost; manual saves soften the learning process, while Ironman turns every commitment into a serious gamble.

What separates Dead Monarchy from many turn-based RPGs is its emphasis on grounded melee tactics in a fully 3D environment rather than flashy abilities or heroic plot armor. Matching overworld locations to their combat maps gives expeditions a stronger sense of place, whether a battle breaks out in open fields or inside a cramped fortress. Default settings offer the best route for learning its systems, whereas Emperor difficulty is aimed at players who already understand how punishing its economy and battles can become. Fans of Battle Brothers, Wartales, or classic tactical mercenary games should appreciate its uncompromising management layer, though newcomers need patience and a willingness to accept failure as part of the campaign.