WAR RATS: The Rat em Up preview — Reviving a genre with exceptional style

When I was a kid, I used to play tons of side-scroller MOBAs on my phone. The genre’s basic premise is that there are two opposing sides with bases at either end of a 2D map, belonging to the player and AI opponent respectively. Whichever team destroys the other’s base first wins. The genre was really popular on mobile, but seems to be all but ignored in the world of modern PC gaming. That is, until now. WAR RATS: The Rat em Up, is a new entry to the genre by solo-dev Brian J Murphy, also known as WootusArt. Let's jump into the preview.

Players take the role of a rat commander in the Great Rat War. The two belligerents in this conflict are the spiritually empowered Old Guard and the technologically infused Techno-Rats. Horrific traditions vs corrupted progress, a tale as old as time. I wouldn’t really say either side is morally grey, this is just straight-up grimdark with some light-hearted humor to prevent things from becoming jarring.

Beyond the basic task of taking your opponent’s base, there are a series of challenges that lie in your way, and ways to overcome them (usually firepower). You can’t just beeline for the Techno-Rat HQ, as there are turret towers that dot the battleground and waves of enemies pour forth from their base. In order to counter your enemies' defenses and troops, you’ll need some of your own. This is where CHz comes in, the currency you get by killing enemies or breaking open containers on the battlefield. CHz is the fuel for your war economy, so use it to buy soldiers for the cause, build up defensive platforms and buff shrines, or make machines to passively gain more CHz. Keep in mind that buildings can only be built in predetermined locations, usually behind enemy turrets, so every successful push turns the tides a little more in your favor.

Let's go over some of the troops that are available to call in. First, there’s the Ratineer; they carry small guns and are lightly armored, but you get a few of them for free every wave, and they’re cheap to recruit. Don’t let their feeble nature fool you, as they have a vital role to play in your campaign. You can’t destroy an enemy base without them, but only one needs to enter the enemy base to end the game. Next up we have Rat Hounds, rat-like dogs that run on all fours with great speed and lash out with ferocious power. While they’re fast and strong, they fall over like a house of cards in the wind, so it’s best to send a pack of them at once to overwhelm enemy forces. Then we have the Rat Grunts, who come decked out in military gear, with moderate health, decent speed, and rifles that pack a real punch. Throwing a few of these guys together at an enemy is a consistent tactic that will win you some meters of land towards the enemy base. Grunts pair well with Shield Rat troops, basically tiny rats pushing forward cover for your forces.

Getting into the real heavy hitters, we have the Rat Mind Scalper. These guys are terrifying visually, with a long mouth bent into a crooked smile, inky black eyes, and a propensity to move forward by hovering slightly off the ground. They’re slow, but they fire energy blasts and put up shields with their occult powers. When the enemy’s side of the battlefield lies in ruins, but the waves coming out of their base keep eradicating my Ratineers, I send a few Mind Scalpers as an escort. Finally, we have Top Hat Top Rat, a gentleman dressed up in a nice suit-vest and jacket, wearing a top hat and monocle, and striding confidently with his cane. He even has a little mouse who scurries behind him, keeping his tail from touching the ground. He’s the awe-inspiring image of the Old Guard, walking slowly like a gentleman before whipping out his hand cannon and firing a devastating blast, eviscerating whatever unlucky souls find themselves on the receiving end. He has real “British officers don’t duck” energy. These guys are immensely potent, yet quite expensive to recruit.

On the other team, the Techno-Rats have some troops which mirror your own, like Ratineers and their own version of grunts called Rattroopers, but most of their troops are unique. They have flying rats in tiny airships who shoot down at you, large rats with no arms and artillery harnessed onto their backs, hulking rats who breathe through tubes with miniguns strapped to their arms, and more. Honestly, the Old Guard units can be a bit unnerving, especially the Mind Scalper, but these guys take the body-horror cake. However, far and away the most fear-inspiring, terror-instilling sight is the normal little rats with tiny visors and what appears to be a small chunk of metal and wiring on their backs. These guys are called Techy, and they’re an absolute pain to deal with. You and your turrets will struggle to target them because they’re so small, they attack in a horde and deal a good chunk of damage with each bite, and they’re a bit buggy, so you might get flung into the air if you step on them. To be honest though, that last part became cherished movement tech for me. I have a feeling they were meant to inspire dark machinations within the minds of players, and that the developer knows what state they’re in. While almost every troop on both sides has at least a paragraph of information or lore in their codex entry, the entry for these guys is one sentence that reads “They’re annoying little mother squeekers.”

Burying my rat trauma and moving on, there are a few skills to develop if you want to succeed on the battlefield. Grenades are a pivotal piece of kit, as they allow you to practically erase an approaching enemy wave if you aim them right. That’s a big if, though. You see, friendly fire is a surefire way to stall your progress, and throwing a grenade with too little momentum could just as easily erase your troops. Pro tip: Never throw a grenade while moving backwards. Even if you’re aiming forwards, that bad boy will follow you, and while you might be both fast and smart enough to escape, your allies probably aren’t.

At one point, I managed to push ahead in a rapid assault, taking down their turret and their waves, allowing me to push forward and construct a tower next to theirs. Our turrets immediately started firing on each other, but I knew I had an edge, as mine was of a higher level. Costly, but worth it. I saw a wave of Techy rats scuttling towards my line, so I decided to help my boys out by chucking a grenade. In what I could only describe as Looney Tunes fashion, the grenade rolled off their turret, onto the backs of their skittering Techy horde, and delivered right to my troops and turret, blowing away my line and a chunk off my defenses. I love how brutal it is, as it makes gaining actual skill feel more satisfying.

This brings me back to CHz, as after dying or clearing the level, you enter the shop to unlock and buy grenades, weapons, and permanent upgrades. Your troops don’t get to have all the fun; buy yourself a nice rifle and some ammo, or a powerful laser that renders even the most powerful enemy rats down to a puddle of blood. You can carry two guns into the battlefield, so go nuts with the combination, but keep in mind that some enemies are most susceptible to certain guns. As for permanent upgrades, you can buff just about everything so long as you have the CHz to pay for it, as it can get costly. You can upgrade the health and damage of your turrets, your troops, and even yourself. If you fail at a mission, save up some CHz and see if changing tactics helps, or try to brute force it with upgrades. There are also items to be found on the battlefield that give tiny stat boosts, of which you can equip three at a time.

Upgrading will help you, but by far the king of all skills in War Rats is positioning. If you get good at staying just out of your enemy's range, then you can deal as much damage as you want without fear of retaliation. That’s another big if, though, as enemies have varying speeds and ranges, and the arrangement of which enemies you’ll face will change throughout a match.

It’s time to talk aesthetics. Brian has nine years of experience as an artist in the games industry, and spent years incubating the ideas for this project, and it shows. You can complain about the game’s mechanical jank with Techys, but my god, is the art amazing in both direction and execution. The themes of both factions are reflected well in their units. Even the pause screen shows the two facing off, the Old Guard are represented by a sword with a hilt made of twisted branches and a rat’s head emerging from where the pommel should be. The Techno-Rats are represented by a robotic rat skull and a column of metallic vertebrae with wires flowing behind it. Simply impeccable art.

On another note, by god, is there a lot of rat gore. At one point, I blasted my way through so many enemies concentrated around their base, that it was like they were rolling out a red carpet made up entirely of blood and viscera. The way the dead rat soldiers lie slumped on the ground is both disturbing and incredibly well executed. You’re in a war, and the morbid nature of conflict cannot be avoided.

There were a few issues I had, like that the telegraphing and audio cues for shooting and reloading could often get drowned out by other noises on the battlefield, leading to confusion. That’s not the end of the world, though, and eventually you’ll begin to intuit when you’ll be reloading. Another problem I had was that destructible ammo and CHz crates on the map were blocking my shots but allowing enemy shots to go through. I don’t understand why this was the case, as drops stick around for a long time, if not forever, so it’s not like enemies destroying them would be burdensome on the player. I also faced performance issues. I think the cause was that CHz and dropped items don’t seem to despawn over time, so eventually the items, CHz, and rat gore took a toll on my PC. The screen shake also bugged out when this happened, causing much more violent screen movement. Although, these are rather minor nitpicks of a very fun game, so take them with a grain of salt.

To wrap up, I really like War Rats. After over a decade away from the genre, I’m not sure I know what I was expecting, but I’m incredibly happy with what I played. The art is compellingly gruesome, and the mechanics are tight. It’s not a long game, as I beat it in 8 hours with reckless gameplay, plenty of restarts, and maybe a bit of idle running time, but it sure was a good time. Beyond the official release, whether it be DLC for War Rats or a new game entirely, I look forward to whatever Brian Murphy puts out next.