War Rats is an interesting idea that’s almost to complex for what it needs to be: about rats with guns.
The rats have big, hairy balls. That should tell you everything you need to know about this game.
War Rats a tower defense-ish strategy game where we command an army of rats to take out the Technorats, a weird robotic rat race that’s trying to take over the world. We have to invade the territories of the Technorats and defeat their bases. They send out waves, and we have to shoot our way through, hiring our own rat armies and building our rat defenses to prevent them from invading our rat base.
Rats, and lots of them.
It’s set in 2D, and we need to sort of twin-stick aim to shoot at the enemies. It’s almost too smooth to control, and an unneeded addition to the chaos. I wish it was a simplified attack forward, since aiming doesn’t feel all that good due to the precision needed. The game itself moves a bit slow, and the levels don’t have too much to do in terms of obstacles. It’s just a constant push to go forward. There’s a lite roguelike spin to it, too, in how we build out our bases. But overall it feels a bit empty in terms of depth of gameplay. The aspects that need depth aren’t there, like the base buildouts and the defensive strategy side, but the focus seems to be more weighted on the shooting, which isn’t all that enjoyable.
War Rats is fine, and it feels like it’s a decent start to a design direction, but overcomplexity can be a burdne and here that’s a sin, and that’s about as much as I can give it.
Steam code provided by publisher. This video originally appeared in The SideQuest LIVE for December 30, 2025.
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