Broken Arrow
Steel Balalaika · Strategy
Overview
Broken Arrow is a large-scale real-time modern warfare tactics game. The base game features both the American and Russian factions, more than 100 units and multiple deck specialisations per nation. Broken Arrow brings the genre to a whole new level by combining the complexity of a joint-forces wargame with the typical real-time tactics action-packed gameplay.
THE GAMEQ VERDICT9,996 reviews analyzed
What players are actually saying
1. Summary
Broken Arrow is a modern-day US versus Russia real-time tactics game, and the reviews split almost down the middle. The people who stay love the core: a deck builder that lets them tune every unit's loadout, large combined-arms battles with tanks, helicopters, jets, artillery and cruise missiles, and a 5v5 format that is at its best with a group of friends. Some call it a modern successor to Wargame or World in Conflict, and plenty of negative reviews open by praising the same core before explaining why they still can't recommend it.
The complaints are about everything around that core. Cheating comes up in 34% of the longer reviews, faction balance in 30%, server trouble and desync in 19%, and leavers in 16%. Single-player fans have their own list: no way to save during campaign missions that run an hour or more, a skirmish mode that needed an online connection and launched without AI teammates, and AI opponents they describe as spamming units and seeing through the fog. Reviewers also describe a slow, uneven update history, with some patches that won players back and others that drove them away.
2. What keeps coming up
What players praise
Deck building and unit customizationHigh
Players pick specializations, choose units and then change each unit's weapons and loadout, and many say they spend hours tuning decks between matches. "The deck builder is exciting." wrote one player, and another said "the deck customization has me addicted." Reviewers coming from other wargames like that lost units come back after a cooldown instead of being gone for the match, which they say keeps a bad early push from deciding the game. The complaints here are about the interface: some find the army builder tedious to use, and several were annoyed that price and balance changes forced them to rebuild saved decks.
Modern combined-arms battles at scaleHigh
Fans describe matches as large, tense and cinematic, with every branch of the military on the map at once and real counters between them: recon spots, artillery and air strike, air defense intercepts missiles, infantry holds towns. Reviewers who rarely play RTS games say the lack of base building and resource gathering made it easier to get into, while genre veterans praise the depth. Some positive reviews say nothing else fills this niche, or put it as "Even with the problems its the best RTS I've played in years." Within this theme, the criticism is that matches can turn into unit spam, which belongs to the balance discussion below.
Playing with friends, co-op and the scenario editorMedium
Many positive reviews come from groups who play together, either as a five-stack in matchmaking or in co-op scenarios against the AI. The scenario editor and Steam Workshop missions, including community-made zombie modes, get steady praise from players who never touch ranked play. The same reviews often add that playing alone is a different experience: "Multiplayer: Addictive if you can muster up 4 mates, frustrating as hell on your own."
Sound, visuals and unit detailMedium
Explosions, missile trails, sound effects and the soundtrack get frequent praise, along with detailed unit models. "Incredible sound design." Graphics draw some dissent: a minority call them dated or plain for how hard the game runs, usually alongside complaints about performance.
Where players are split
US versus Russia faction balanceHigh
Balance appears in 30% of the longer reviews, and players disagree about which side it favors. Players on the US side often described Russian armor, helicopters and air defense as too strong and too cheap. After patches that nerfed Russia, players on the Russian side posted the opposite complaint, saying their faction had been gutted and the US was now ahead. Some reviewers think both camps are partly right: "most people say one faction or the other is overpowered but its more just some categories of each faction that are overpowered". Others say low-rated players blame the faction for losses that come from skill. Specific gripes include stealth and air defense working inconsistently, anti-tank weapons failing against armor, artillery and helicopter spam, and frequent cost changes. A single patch could flip a player's review in either direction.
Patch direction and the public test branchMedium
Heavy multiplayer players account for nearly all of this discussion. They describe a public test environment (PTE) that ran for about three months, which they liked, followed by an anniversary update that they say kept few of the tested changes and added untested ones, such as vehicles resupplying infantry without limit. "Wasted our time for 3 months on a PTE then proceeds not to implement any of the changes." A later patch that brought the tested changes over won some of those reviewers back: "After new update that returned PTE changes it became playable again". A smaller group preferred the earlier balance and says the community pushed the game in the wrong direction. What these reviewers ask for is changes shipped as they were tested, in smaller and more frequent patches.
Campaign and single-player contentMedium
Supporters of the two campaigns enjoy the cinematic missions, and one called it "A campaign worthy of World of Conflict." Critics call it short, buggy in places and weakly written: "The campaign is poorly voice acted and feels slapped on." Several report missions they could not finish, including a resupply mission in the Russian campaign, and difficulty spikes. These complaints come mostly from players with less total playtime, many of whom bought the game for single player and say it is clearly built around multiplayer. The missing save feature has its own entry below.
Comparisons with WARNO and WargameMedium
WARNO, Wargame or Steel Division come up in 18% of the longer reviews, and the comparisons point both ways. Fans say Broken Arrow is faster, more accessible and more modern: "Better than Warno by miles, also infantry play is super meaningful and engaging." Critics send buyers the other way, praising WARNO's single player, skirmish and polish: "Warno is just better, hopefully this game gets better with more time but for right now its just not worth 60 dollars". World in Conflict comparisons are usually fond, with fans saying it feels close to that game with modern units, though a few critics point World in Conflict fans back to the original.
Nukes, artillery and air powerMedium
Big strikes are part of the fun for many players, and short joke reviews about nukes turn up often. Others find the same tools oppressive in ranked play: repeated nuke and cruise missile strikes, artillery spam, and air units that either die instantly or seem to have no counter. "Best part about this game is being nuked 4 times in a game and still winning" sits next to "ill thumbs up when they remove nukes".
Free and paid battlegroupsLow
Reviewers welcomed a free battlegroup update: "Amazing game ngl, including that there is now a Free DLC is a W." A paid Russian battlegroup drew a harsher reaction from players who saw its units as overpowered in PvP and called it pay to win: "Game was fun until they dropped a Pay2Win DLC". Others enjoyed it and expected the balance to settle. Some also complained that new content arrived as paid DLC before long-requested features like replays.
Learning curve and onboardingLow
Some new players found the game easier to learn than other wargames and praised the tutorial: "first game in awhile where the tutorial is fun and really teaches you to play the game without being boring". Others found unit roles and ranges poorly explained in game and wanted better tooltips and stat readouts.
What frustrates players
Cheaters and weak anti-cheatHigh
At 34% of the longer reviews, cheating comes up more than any other theme. Players describe map hacks, units with edited range, damage or health, extra spawn points, and frozen match timers, and several blame the game for trusting each player's client instead of checking actions on the server. Reviewers say an anti-cheat system arrived after launch and helped for a while, but some later reviews report cheaters back, especially at higher ratings. "Multiplayer consists of cheaters (enemy team) and leavers (your team)". A minority of positive reviews say they rarely or never met a cheater and that the problem is overstated.
Leavers, uneven teams and matchmakingHigh
Leavers appear in 16% of the longer reviews. At launch there was no leaver penalty and no surrender vote, so reviewers describe many 5v5 matches turning into 3v5 within minutes: "Join Game. All Teammates leave. Exit Game." A penalty and a surrender option were added later, and some reviewers changed their score because of it, but others say the penalty now hits players whose game crashed or disconnected. Matchmaking adds its own complaints: solo players matched against coordinated five-stacks ("Constantly randoms vs coordinated 5-man stacks."), wide rating gaps between teammates, long queues at low or high ratings, lobbies that kick new players, and only 5v5 for ranked play. Requests for a solo queue and 1v1, 2v2 or 3v3 modes come up regularly.
Servers, desync and disconnectsHigh
Units teleporting or rubber-banding, matches cancelled when a player fails to load, and disconnects that end a match or even a solo skirmish against bots: server trouble of this kind comes up in 19% of the longer reviews. "You were disconnected from the server. You can start new game so we can disconnect you from the server again." Players in Asia and Australia report high ping with no nearby servers. Some later reviews say server stability improved, while others say it got worse again after specific patches.
Crashes and performanceMedium
Crashes, freezes, memory leaks and low frame rates come up in 14% of the longer reviews, often from players with high-end hardware: "Graphics look not very good, runs bad on a 9800x3d, 5080, 64GB ram, crashes very often." Recurring reports include the game freezing or crashing on exit and needing Task Manager, frame rate collapsing during long matches, and crashes during bombing runs or nukes. A few reviewers credit specific patches with large performance gains.
No saving during campaign and scenario missionsMedium
Missions and scenarios can run one to several hours, so a crash or a real-life interruption means starting over, and some reviewers note there was no restart button either. "I fear real life interrupting my 2-hour mission with no save option." The lack of saves comes up in 11% of the longer reviews, more than any other single-player complaint. Some single-player buyers say it is why they refunded or left a negative review, and reviews written a year after launch still list it as missing.
No replaysMedium
Players want a replay system to learn from losses, but mostly to check whether an opponent was cheating; 9% of the longer reviews bring it up. "No replay system in a game where most cheaters get banned manually??? No thanks". For a competitive RTS, reviewers treat it as a basic feature that should have been there at release.
Slow updates and missing featuresMedium
Reviewers describe long waits between patches, delayed content, and announcements that only promised further announcements, plus roadmaps that put basic features like saves and replays a year out. Some say the game should have launched as early access. "Not a single major patch in months for an obviously broken game". Requests for more factions (only the US and Russia are playable), more maps and more game modes come up steadily, in positive and negative reviews alike.
Skirmish, AI and offline playMedium
At launch, skirmish needed a server connection and had no AI teammates, so solo players could not fill a team with bots: "Can't add friendly ai to my game Cmon man". AI teammates arrived later and won some players over ("After almost 6 months, they've finally added AI teammates to skirmish mode, so I can finally switch my review to positive"), but complaints about online-only skirmish, no pause, and no way to edit AI decks continued. AI opponents are described as cheating by seeing hidden units or spamming units without limits, even on easy.
Anti-cheat side effects and bansLow
The Easy Anti-Cheat rollout stopped some players from launching the game at all ("Easy Anti Cheat not installed" errors) and broke play on Linux for a time. A group of players say they were banned for using trainers or mods in single player against AI, sometimes with a ban date shown as 1969: "Got banned having WeMod opened in the background for other game." Some objected to Steam Family Sharing being turned off.
PriceLow
Reviewers who mention price usually call the game fair on sale and too expensive at full price for its state: "It's not worth 50$ currently but on sale it's worth it."
Toxic communityLow
Some reviews warn about hostile chat, teammates who blame each other, and players who kick newcomers from lobbies. One positive review sums it up as "game is good. the community is bad."
3. The player conversation
The tone is heated, and the split is close to even. Long negative reviews are often written by people who still play and still like the core game, and 12% of the longer reviews talk about the game's "potential". Many reviews carry several edits that flip between positive and negative as patches land, and those flips track specific events reviewers describe: the leaver penalty and surrender vote, AI teammates in skirmish, the free battlegroup, the anniversary update and the patch that followed it, and the paid battlegroup.
The save feature, the campaign and launch problems come disproportionately from players with less total playtime, many of whom came for single player and found a multiplayer-first game. Balance, cheating at high ratings, leavers and the public test branch come from heavy multiplayer players, and the reviews that mention the PTE are almost all from players with 100 or more hours. Short positive reviews are mostly simple enthusiasm, nuke jokes and best-RTS verdicts, while short negative ones reduce to single words: cheaters, bias, leavers, no save.
4. What the developers could do
- Validate actions on the server and keep pushing anti-cheat: cheating is the theme reviewers raise most, and many blame a client that the server trusts for edited unit stats and map hacks.
- Ship a replay system with in-match reporting: players want replays mainly to verify suspected cheaters, and they connect the missing feature directly to their distrust of matches.
- Stabilize servers and make reconnecting reliable: desync, cancelled matches and disconnects even in solo skirmish recur across the first year, and they also trigger leaver penalties for players who did nothing wrong.
- Add mid-mission saves to the campaign and scenarios: missions run for hours, and some single-player buyers cite the missing saves when explaining a refund or a negative review.
- Fix matchmaking for solo players: reviewers ask for a solo queue, tighter rating ranges between teammates, and smaller 1v1, 2v2 or 3v3 modes so that five-stacks and leavers decide fewer games.
- Ship balance changes as tested, in smaller steps: the reaction to the anniversary update and the patch that followed it shows players accepting changes they could test and rejecting surprises.
- Fix memory leaks, crashes on exit and frame-rate drops: performance complaints come from high-end PCs as well as weaker ones, and some end in refunds.
- Make skirmish fully offline and fix anti-cheat collateral: solo players want offline skirmish with pause and editable AI decks, and players hit by launch errors or bans for single-player trainers want a working install and an appeal path.
