At the end, your mercs will be bruised and probably injured, requiring stays in an infirmary. The closest comparison is Darkest Dungeon, as you hop from node to node while managing dwindling resources, including health potions, bandages, and abilities that (only potentially) recharge when you make camp. Your mercs are more than happy to descend into monster-filled dungeons packed with obstacles and branching pathways. On the whole, though, battles are enjoyable and tactically rich thanks to the thoughtful use of terrain and abilities.

When the participants are bunched together in a mass of sprites and interface icons, it can be difficult to read the battlefield.

Positioning is everything, which can make the fixed viewpoint frustrating sometimes. Rarely do your abilities just cause damage to your opponent you're laying a fire trap with your pyrolancer, then using your pugilist to push the enemy into it. There's light and heavy cover, but that's only part of The Iron Oath's emphasis on terrain, as there are also spike pits and holes, and sigils that trigger magical effects when stepped on. You can take just four of your company into fights, on smallish hex maps with a smallish number of enemies, which really gets you into the heat of battle quickly. When combat breaks out, either in a dungeon or out on the overworld, it's handled swiftly and gracefully, in the tried-and-tested turn-based tactics manner. A higher reputation leads to better shop prices and jobs, while a lower one may put a bounty on your head. Jobs, for the most part, are typical sidequest stuff: clear out these monsters or escort this caravan in exchange for cash and renown that increases your standing in that part of the world. These factors change as time passes, but I couldn't detect any notable fluctuations to the economy in affected towns, while it hardly matters which type of monster you've been sent to kill as part of a job. If there's undead in the region, there will be more jobs asking you to hunt them down, while bandits supposedly increase shop prices in nearby towns. These might sound dramatic, but mainly they decide the types of jobs on offer. Little icons by each town tell you which factors are currently affecting them, including the presence of bandits or monsters, or environmental effects like dust storms. To be fair, there is plenty of stuff going on in the background.

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