Dustwind Resistance
Key provided for free by the developer
Dustwind Resistance is a tactical real-time, mission-based game heavily influenced by Fallout: Tactics. It features a single-player campaign, a skirmish mode, and the ability to create user-generated maps via an editor. This review focuses primarily on the campaign mode, which I played on normal difficulty, though I will highlight differences in the skirmish mode where relevant.
Story
The story of Dustwind Resistance centers on Jake Kowalski, a farmboy; his dog Diesel; and later his wife Amanda and Diego, the son of the Governor. Their community is attacked by an army of bandits led by the story’s antagonist, known as "The Warlord.”The creatively named antagonist sets the tone for the narrative. The campaign revolves around defending against the bandit onslaught. You start by protecting Jake’s farm, which serves as the game’s main hub for trading, and rescuing surrounding communities before confronting the Warlord himself.
The story is lackluster. This might be forgivable in a tactics game, but the narrative is filled with cartoonish tropes that drain any sense of seriousness or stakes from the experience.
The Warlord
Gameplay
Dustwind Resistance’s gameplay is a mixed bag. It improves on some shortcomings of Fallout: Tactics, but introduces new problems through its mission design, making the experience often unenjoyable.The character skill system is well-designed compared to Fallout: Tactics, which struggled with a skill system rooted in its narratively complex predecessors. In Dustwind Resistance, all skills feel useful. Skills are divided into "attack", "defense", and "other" categories, covering the game’s three weapon types (melee, light, and heavy weapons), environmental skills like mechanics for disarming traps, and character improvements for movement, perception, and defensive bonuses.
Skill Selection Window
The “Virtues and Vices” section includes traits similar to Fallout’s perks, which aren’t level-restricted. Virtues are positive traits, like faster reloading or immunity to critical failures when disarming mines. Vices are negative traits, such as reduced stealth due to a character’s stench, which grant extra skill points.
The flies show that my characters stink, a negative trait giving skill points for lowering the stealth skill
Characters earn skill points after each mission, which can be freely distributed to skills or traits. However, that means that upgrades never occur mid-mission, forcing you to upgrade characters at the mission’s start. This is problematic because fast-scaling enemies punish players focusing on environmental skills, and the inability to adapt to in-mission circumstances feels restrictive. Additionally, the lack of XP rewards for killing enemies makes combat feel pointless in a game with a leveling system.
The enemy roster primarily consists of raiders, with some robots and hyenas, lacking the variety of Fallout: Tactics. While the 3D models don't come close to the iconic sprite work of Fallout, Dustwind Resistance excels at making enemies visually distinct, allowing players to identify threats at a glance. This is skillfully executed and necessary for gameplay clarity but doesn’t elevate the overall experience.
Though this is a special failure state encounter you can spot all units capabilities at a glance even if massed
The campaign features 10 missions with decent variety, though the first mission—a forced tutorial featuring Jake and Amanda as children—is unappreciated.
From the outset, Dustwind Resistance is overly direct with mission objectives, using a compass and large arrows to guide players. While Fallout: Tactics could be vague about objectives, Dustwind’s “paint-by-numbers” approach feels out of place in a tactical genre that thrives on unknown variables. The map screen, nearly identical to Fallout: Tactics, is thematically inappropriate for Dustwind’s smaller-scale story, and the military-like mission styles clash with the narrative tone.
Mission Map Screen, looks very similar to Fallout Tactics map
Most missions involve reaching a specific map point, killing enemies, or finding an NPC, with smaller tasks like locating gate switches. While the map design and objectives are fine, the gameplay connecting these elements is problematic.
Fallout: Tactics is a relatively easy game, all things considered, which the developers of Dustwind Resistance have accurately identified and tried to fix. In most cases in Fallout: Tactics, you can use defensive strategies and baiting to create manageable encounters. Environmental hazards exist but are not particularly deadly; mines, for example, only disable vehicles. In Dustwind Resistance, however, having your vehicle destroyed by a mine results in a game over.
Many issues have been superficially addressed but make the experience significantly worse. Three aspects are used repeatedly, later even stacked cumulatively upon each other:
- In general, the game is vastly more deadly; it’s common for a character, whether NPC or player-controlled, to be knocked out in one or two shots. While this isn’t inherently an issue, as it could encourage tactical play, the game doesn’t provide adequate tools to support such strategies.
- Early on, the game introduces snipers—enemies with maximum range that deal massive damage and suggest you try to circumvent them. This is hardly possible in later missions due to map design or multiple snipers covering all angles. Later, robotic snipers, which are far more robust and have greater weapon range than your characters, are often invisible until they shoot and kill one of your characters.
- Dustwind Resistance has enough mines to make superpowers blush with envy and Just like in Fallout: Tactics, they are not fun to navigate.
Even a character with maximized mine-disarming skills takes 5–10 seconds to detect a mine, which is annoying in itself when you encounter the many corridors filled with them.
One of the many issues with mines in between these screenshots is quite often, right near the mine are invisible snipers and a turret with a rocket launcher ready to kill anyone disarming the mine
Scarce skill points force specialization in soft skills (like mine disarming) alongside combat abilities, but this leads to frustrating scenarios, such as a mine specialist triggering a nearby not yet spotted mine while moving to disarming another. Without a second disarmer, you’re forced to quickload or accept a party member (likely your dog) exploding into bits.
While later I managed to have all characters use sniper rifles, which alleviates the above issues somewhat, Dustwind Resistance counters this with hordes of melee “trash mobs” that overwhelm you in unbelievable numbers.
Beating the last two stages felt like eating razors. Game design-wise, it’s somewhat admirable; stacking all these mechanics into one cumulative challenge makes sense in-universe and is tactically sound, but the game doesn’t provide adequate solutions for its proposed problems.
Consider this in-game scenario: robotic snipers with more range than any of your weapons cannot be outgunned or seen without trial-and-error quickloading. Rushing forward into cover to take potshots often ends with you triggering a mine. Managing to shoot or attempting to flank triggers around 30 melee enemies that your snipers, limited by minimum range, cannot handle.
These challenges are beatable, of course, but they’re not fun. I wouldn’t be able to beat the game in Ironman mode; the only reasonable way to play is by spamming quicksaves.
Endgame Chaos, shooting any enemy in the end rooms triggers a massive attack from all sides, I am also out of C4 even though I bought all available stock
The effectivness of mines is questionable at best
The defense and vehicle missions deserve mention. I was excited for the defense missions, as the game’s design suits defensive play. However, the second defense mission is among the hardest, crushing any sense of power fantasy. Enemies cleverly target defensive structures or low-range fighters with snipers while rushing your snipers with durable melee combatants. Mines are ineffective, as enemies seem to avoid them, and defensive options like barricades are easily bypassed or used as cover by enemies. The two available turrets are strong but insufficient, turning the mission into a micromanagement-heavy repair and revive exercise.
Look at that mess of bodies. Trying to keep up with booby traps was not possible. C4 is excellent but rare, and normal mines are summarily ignored
The first vehicle mission, featuring the Scrap-Truck, is the only mission I enjoyed. The vehicle is a fun, resilient weapon platform, allowing players to assign a driver and gunner and control whether the vehicle’s gun or characters’ weapons are used. Navigating areas, finding switches to open gates, (just like Fallout's Macomb), and clearing enemies is genuinely engaging, though vehicle controls are as clunky as those in Fallout: Tactics.
Scrap-Truck in action
Overall, Dustwind Resistance has a few moments of enjoyment but fumbles execution in nearly every aspect. At its best, it’s a callback to the quirky Fallout: Tactics, but it fails to capitalize on its improved mechanics in a fun way.
Design
Graphically, Dustwind Resistance is serviceable. The environments are well-designed for their purpose and evoke the intended aesthetic, but the need for visual clarity in chaotic missions results in garish colors and cartoonish weapon and character designs, sacrificing flavor. Character artwork is washed out and lacks detail, possibly to mask artistic shortcomings.
Character Artwork and another example of the cartoony nature of the story
The soundscape and music are minimal. Sound effects are adequate, but the sparse, slow ambient guitar tracks fail to energize the experience. A high-energy combat theme during fights could have elevated the gameplay, but the drab audio reinforces the game’s mediocrity.
The humor, attempting to emulate Fallout’s style, misses the mark. Elements like “Frogpigs” (a stand-in for Fallout’s Brahmin) and a “tactical plunger” weapon feel unnecessary and forced.
While culture war critique will not affect the score, It would feel wrong not to comment on it.
The game’s character designs align with contemporary identitarian trends. Jake and his father, both dark-skinned, have the surname Kowalski, which suggests Polish or Eastern European origins without explanation. Amanda, Jake’s White wife, has a solo prison-break mission where she provokes a jailer by mocking his fear of girls before easily defeating him, leaning into Feminist tropes. Diego and a temporary companion, Jeff, are also dark-skinned, while the Warlord is, of course, White, aligning with the current zeitgeist.
Amanda’s Jailbreak Scene
Odds and Ends
The game suffers from its limited roster of four predefined characters, limiting the ability to change up builds across playthroughs. On the other hand, Skirmish mode allows up to six custom characters that can be created from scratch, offering more flexibility.Dogs, like Diesel, are interesting companions but weirdly implemented. They use specific melee weapons and armor, have increased movement speed and perception, and move as if crouched. However, their ability to climb ladders, use medicine, throw grenades, drive vehicles, and operate vehicle guns breaks immersion, as they’re functionally indistinguishable from humans and often look absolutely goofy.
Diesel climbing a Ladder
Skirmish Character Creation
Skirmish mode includes several missions and an editor. While I only tried one mission, the character creation is robust, allowing players to choose combat robots, “Titans” (this game’s mutant equivalent), dogs, and humans. This extends replayability post-campaign.
The game’s cartoonish atmosphere—spanning narrative, design, and gameplay—clashes with its attempt to present a serious story about military tactics and war. Fallout: Tactics elegantly balances its military operation framework within a rich setting, with systems like recruitment, mission briefings, and side objectives that enhance the narrative and journey. Dustwind Resistance lacks these, and while it smooths some of Tactics’ quirks, it falls short of what made the original a compelling game.
Conclusion
I did not enjoy Dustwind Resistance. Despite my love for Fallout: Tactics, Dustwind Resistance fails to deliver on its inspiration. Its improvements are undermined by frustrating game design. Aspects like mine handling are nearly identical to Tactics’ most annoying mechanics, while the flavor and systems that made the original fun are absent. The result is a boring, condensed experience that left me wanting to replay Fallout: Tactics instead.The game isn’t offensively bad, but its mediocrity and lack of fun make it hard to recommend. By mission three, I was so bored I nearly quit, only continuing to complete this review. I’d rather do laundry. I’d score it a 4/10, using the full scale (unlike some gaming journalists). Instead, I recommend Fallout: Tactics, a genuinely good game, though I understand purists may dislike its departure from Fallout’s RPG roots.
