Developed and published by WanadevStudio, Vestiges: Fallen Tribes is a brand-new deckbuilding, strategic card battling game. On paper, the formula for Vestiges is fairly simple. You build your decks, choose the best cards, and use the best strategy to overcome your enemies and defeat them in tabletop, animated battles. However, we have seen this formula many times before and what sets this new card-battler apart from the rest is the real question. This is our early access review of Vestiges: Fallen Tribes on PC via Steam in which we try to outthink a clever opponent and let loose cool units across a tabletop battlefield.
Vestiges: Fallen Tribes gives a powerful Dune vibe right from the start because of its desert-based battlefields. There are some other themes across these battlefields, but even in those forest-like areas, we were still thinking of the game as a Dune card-battler. This is not a complaint, rather this is a compliment because we absolutely love the overall theme and presentation of the game. Vestiges: Fallen Tribes gives you command of two different tribes known as Illustran and Adrarii who feature unique units and forces to collect and command in different battles across battlefields that seem to be based on top of a table. Both tribes feature unique units and technology, and you can create custom decks for both tribes to suit your gameplay.
The gameplay of Vestiges: Fallen Tribes is fairly straightforward. The battles take place across tabletop battlefields where you are on one side and your opponent is on the opposite side. The battlefield opens in a cool animation at the start of the battle. For missions and challenges, some of your units are already placed on the battlefield and you cannot move them around but for custom battles, you have complete command your entire army. You drag and drop cards on the battlefield in your territory which transform into animated units. Each card transforms into multiple units depending on its type. You can change their formations and positioning to change your battle strategy. New units are not visible to the opposing players until the round begins so each player is going in blind in each turn. Once a round is passed, the units placed in the previous round are visible to all players, but they cannot be moved around anymore.
Once you are satisfied with your unit placement, you click deploy and the units engage in battles. While the units are animated, it is somewhat limited. You will see guns firing, horses running, and artillery pounding enemies, but it is not an RTS, so these animations are fairly limited. These are still fun to look at. You cannot do much during the battles apart from moving the camera around and seeing the action from different angles. Each unit manages its own combat for both teams, and they will always try to find the enemies closest to them to fight. Traditional battle tactics come into play here such as ranged units deal more damage, but they are killed quickly, and melee units deal less damage, but they absorb damage. You can also place support units to assist offensive units such as shields or healers. Each battle has different rounds and once a round is over, you get energy to use additional cards from your deck.
The battles, despite you not doing much during them, feel satisfying and you can different units engage in combat in brutal yet cute little details. There is no blood so it is pretty safe for people who cannot watch blood. The unit cards are diverse including melee, ranged, support, healers, and special cards. Apart from tribe-specific cards, the game also has some neutral cards that are available to all tribes, and you can add them to your deck no matter which tribe you pick. After choosing a tribe and selecting your deck of cards, you can take part in solo Missions, PvP battles, or Private battles with your friends. The single-player Missions are pre-defined missions with a few units and cards already decided for you and you have to overcome the challenge. Apart from these modes, you can also complete Weekly Challenges to unlock some profile customizing options. You can customize certain elements of your profile such as your icon, border, and titles to represent yourself in online leaderboards.
During its initial release, Vestiges: Fallen Tribes is somewhat limited when it comes to content in the game. Despite the 2 tribes, each tribe only has a small number of cards on offer as well. The Neutral Card selection is low as well as well as the game modes in the game. A few placeholders with Coming Soon tags are currently present in the game such as new cards for each tribe and some Neutral Cards that should arrive soon in the game but apart from these new cards, there is nothing new coming into the game in the near future that has been revealed by the developer.
Vestiges: Fallen Tribes is off to an excellent start because it offers solid strategic card-based battles, and we love its art style. It gives serious Dune vibes and some of the units seem to be inspired by it as well. The only problem currently with the release is the amount of content that you find in the game. The single-player campaign missions are only good for a few runs while the online community for the game is rather slim at this point to find a match quickly. There are not many card options to build your decks as well. Coming to game modes, we only have three at this moment and two of them are online only which means that you need to find someone to play it with and the player base is not large currently which results in somewhat longer wait times for games.
We understand that it is currently in Early Access but even for Early Access standards these days, the amount of content currently present in the game is not enough. At this point, we recommend that you give the developers some more time to add some more factions, cards, and modes to the game before investing your money and time into the game. The developer has shared plans to add more content including new cards, tribes, and game modes and the gameplay will get additional refinements as well. We will be jumping into Vestiges: Fallen Tribes again, closer to its full release so make sure to check out our review of its full release as well.
Final Verdict:
Vestiges: Fallen Tribes is a great deckbuilding card battler with cool visuals and a brilliant overall presentation that really hooks you in the game but in its current state, there is not enough content to keep you busy. While the game excels are its gameplay and visuals, it lacks in terms of content, so it is best to wait a little longer and let the developers add some more content to the game before adding it to your collection. For the time being, it is best to add it to your wishlist and hold out for a few more updates to arrive. Still, if you want to jump into the game, it will not disappoint you and will keep you busy for a fair amount of time. Highly recommended for players who love deckbuilding and using strategy and cards to defeat their enemies.
Final Score: 7.0/10
