Guards II: Chaos in Hell – Turn-Based Strategy with a Unique Spin

• DEVELOPER: Battlecruiser Games
• PUBLISHER: HeroCraft PC
• PLATFORMS: PC
• GENRE: Turn-based / Strategy
• RELEASE DATE: June 19, 2025
• STARTING PRICE: 15,79 €
• REVIEWED VERSION: PC

I was surprised by how much fun Guards II: Chaos in Hell is. It brings something new to turn-based strategy genre, forcing you to move your characters around a grid to activate their abilities and attacks. You’ll assemble a squad of four heroes from eight unlockable options (like a wizard, monk, or dark priest), which you earn by progressing through the campaign. Your goal is to defeat demons, but the game is not without its flaws.

Core mechanics are easy to understand

The game start with a brief tutorial that teaches you the core mechanic: to activate a hero’s ability, you must strategically swap them around a 7×3 grid. However, only the first two rows are actively used by the player. The second row holds your three attacking heroes, while the single position in the first row is for healing and activating abilities when you move a hero out of it.

This is a really cool and interesting idea that keeps evolving. Each hero has unique attack methods: short-range, long-range, or elemental attacks. They also have second stances, for example, a wind elementalist mage can switch to a more powerful fire stance, unleashing special meteor fireballs. Healing is crucial too, and swapping a character from the back row is highly recommended.

After the tutorial, you’ll start playing through a campaign that takes you through five distinct circles of Hell, each inspired by myths from various cultures, and every unlocks a new heroe. You’ll face a variety of enemies: they start weak, like simple mummies and grotesque creatures, but quickly become more deadly, throwing shurikens, attacking multiple times, and multiplying each level, making all biomes much harder to clear. My biggest bonus feature is the speed-up button. This lets you quickly complete playthroughs and levels in about six minutes, but it still keeping the strategic thinking fun and fast-paced.

“You’ll face a variety of enemies: they start weak, but quickly become more deadly.”

You can experiment with heroes and their talent trees

Every enemy in Guards II is weak to something, whether it’s fire or physical attacks, making them easier to defeat with the right strike. After clearing a level, you can use demon essence (earned from completing levels) to get temporary boosts to stats like attack or health. Each circle of Hell has about 4-5 levels. However, a frustrating aspect is that to advance to the next level, you often have to replay previous ones within the terittory. This means clearing the same content again just to progress. This design choice was likely made to extend the game’s length and ensure you have enough time and resources for upgrades.

All heroes have their own talent or upgrade tree, allowing you to buff their attacks, abilities, and boost their health and power, with multiple upgrade tiers available. You upgrade them using gems earned by completing levels and each level also offers higher difficulty settings, from easy to extreme, keeping the game fun and challenging. Additionally, you can unlock extra skills with feathers, such as heroes recovering more health in the back row or earning more demon essence after each level.

There’s ability to conjure certain items for one-time or limited use during battle, like reviving a fallen hero (since it’s an instant game over if one dies) or dealing extra damage. But my biggest issue with Guards II is that it plays too safe with its content, offering not so much variety. While some heroes have unique stances, like the alchemist’s gun, most simply shift into a fiery form that’s often even weaker than their initial one.

“All heroes have their own talent or upgrade tree.”

Fast-paced and fun, you won’t be dissapointed

It’s also unclear how many gems you’ve saved for each hero, since each character has their own separate pool for upgrades. While Guards II: Chaos in Hell boasts nice pixel graphics, they are too pixelated. This makes ability information, on-screen numbers, and even the initial tutorial text very difficult to read. Most enemies have distinctive looks and there’s a good variety, but bosses surprisingly don’t stand out. They lack unique characteristics, feeling more like regular enemies.

However, despite these visual drawbacks, the game’s fast-paced turn-based strategy, combined with each biome introducing unique tactics and new heroes, makes it a really solid choice if you enjoy this genre. There’s even a special “hell mode” at the end for an extra challenge. I can highly recommend this title. With 80 levels to beat and a flexible systems, you’ll constantly experiment with your heroes and use them strategically, which is a big plus.

Review copy provided by the publisher

4