There are hits on Steam, there are hidden gems, and there is Infested Fortress: The new strategy game on Steam has a 92% positive rating and players who attest to its high addictive potential, yet hardly anyone touches the game at release. It looks like RimWorld in a fantasy dungeon. Maybe that’s for the best, says MeinMMO author Schuhmann. Because the game is addictive and a danger to one’s leisure time.

What kind of game is this?

• Infested Fortress is a strategy game on Steam, where you build your own dungeon in real-time like in Dungeon Keeper. A day timer ticks mercilessly, and new days bring dangerous mythical creatures, wild animals, and undead raiders into the dungeon.
• Battles against the attacking hordes of enemies and boss fights are fought using turn-based strategy like in Baldur’s Gate 3.
• The game has been in Early Access on Steam since March 2023, but officially released only on October 29. It costs €19.50 – but there is also a free demo available for download. The game is available in German and English, but it is only voiced in English.

The trailer looks like nothing, but the game has what it takes:

A mix of Dungeon Keeper and RimWorld in a fantasy dungeon

How does the game play? Surprisingly well. Like in the ancient ‘Dungeon Keeper’ or in ‘Dwarf Fortress,’ you get your own dungeon that you can expand by digging and building walls, allowing you to soon construct an impressive fortress. With each cell that you newly excavate, you gain new resources like wood, stone, magma, gold, ores, or simply topsoil. Time and again, you also discover domestic animals like chickens, pigs, or cows in the dungeon, for which you build farms.

In the rapidly sprawling vaults, you can freely set up rooms and within minutes have various economic cycles underway:

• For example, you can grow wheat, corn, or mushrooms – from which soup or bread is made, helping your meager fantasy heroes get by. If they eat a balanced and varied diet, they receive a bonus to their hit points. If they starve, the HP drop quickly.
• You can craft various equipment items in different quality levels, thus also having a progress system in place: At the beginning, you can only craft a bow or a short sword, but your heroes quickly become more skilled and can soon create flame swords or powerful armor from the stronger materials you mine.
• You can also build accommodations, training rooms, or a dining hall.

You should ensure that your fortress is sensibly constructed and the rooms are adequately separated by walls, to maintain high effectiveness: If you simply arrange all rooms on a large open area without design, the effectiveness of the rooms drops drastically. In addition to long travel distances, you risk effectiveness loss, hunger, and wasted time.

If you build poorly, you will quickly have no chance in battles.

A group of heroes like in a role-playing game with items and skills

The appeal of the game is: In “Infested Fortress,” you are actually under constant pressure, as opponents wait at regular intervals for you to defeat them; otherwise, they will rob you, tear down your fortress, or simply start the fight themselves.

To deal with the monster hordes, you have a group of heroes at your disposal: You start with 3, but you regularly receive reinforcements. By day 15, you have about 6 heroes available, all of whom you can take into battle.

If a hero falls in battle, they must be replaced. This invites constant reloading or even restarting.

The assembly of heroes is varied and remarkably diverse:

• There are plate armor-wearing tanks like champions or knights.
• Melee fighters like assassins, slayers, or the paladin (who strangely cannot wear plate armor).
• Several types of archers who can also summon pets or set traps.
• With the priest and the monk, you have two healers available, with the priest being more of an offensive mage-hybrid.
• With warlocks, frost, and fire mages, you have three spellcasting classes to choose from, which differ significantly from each other. The warlock is a specialist in draining mana from enemies.

The classes have a complete skill and leveling system: You quickly notice the power progression. While a level 1 priest can practically do nothing except twirl a stick and send a flash of light at the enemy once per round, a level 5 priest has several healing spells, a chain lightning, and a holy whirlwind at their disposal.

It is also important that you – like in Monster Hunter – craft new equipment from the defeated boss enemies: From such a troll comes a special sword quickly, and from a poisonous manticore a shield.

And the animals provide the raw material leather and the resource meat for the grill.

Infested Fortress is addictive, but has few players

And is it fun? In fact, Infested Fortress, despite its humble graphics, is highly addictive and quite tricky. Even on the second-highest difficulty level, the game is a tough nut even for experienced strategy players. Because Infested Fortress ruthlessly punishes weaknesses in dungeon construction or tactical errors. The game confronts the player with a steep learning curve:

The initial idea: ‘My knight tanks the mobs, and the rest deals damage’ quickly crumbles when the tank is ripped to shreds by 6 skeletons in one round.

‘Kiting’ mobs also brings its own difficulties. The game is much more challenging than it appears, as the enemies also utilize ranged abilities, and a skeleton mage is much better protected and tougher due to spells than a mere skeleton could ever be.

A role-playing game without dialogues – reduced to combat and crafting

Because what looks a bit rough in the trailer turns out to be a clever and demanding puzzle that delivers the full “role-playing kick” that many desire.

A sort of “essence of a role-playing game” without much dialogue and narrative, but reduced to the game systems of combat and crafting.

Infested Fortress has a high level of difficulty, and you tend to make mistakes, fail, and keep starting over.

The game, however, does not seem to have caught on at all on Steam, as it has almost no players, despite already having 92% positive reviews.

In March 2023, it had simultaneously 17 players. The release of the game seems to have fizzled out completely, and in the last 24 hours, the player peak was 2.

High addictive potential for strategy and role-playing fans who place little value on graphics

What do the reviews say? Players rave about how challenging and demanding it is to build an effective dungeon and defeat the waves of monsters that the game throws at you.

If you’re tempted to give a game that looks unimpressive a chance, you should definitely check out the demo and then decide whether Infested Fortress is worth €19.50.

But warning: I discovered the game on Saturday and played it until 4 AM. On Sunday, I didn’t touch it again because it would have ruined my whole weekend.

More game recommendations:

Steam: I started as a lonely Viking – 400 years later, I have half of Europe, 12,300 descendants, and a problem

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