Welcome to Backpack Battles, an addictive new PC game where you choose what items to buy, and place them in your backpack strategically to win battles against other online players. It is a cautivating blend of strategy, auto battler, and resource management genres that will test your creativity and decision-making skills. In this Backpack Battles review, I will evaluate the game and share its good and bad aspects. I will also provide you with some tips on how to optimize your gameplay and win more battles. So, let’s dive in!
Last update: November 2023
General information
Platforms: PC
Planned release date: April 2024. Free demo version available now on Steam and other sites.
Developer: PlayWithFurcifer
Genre: Resource management, auto-battler.
Itch.io rating: 4.7/5
Crazy Games rating: 8.9/10
Description (from developer)
“Prepare your backpack! Buy rare and legendary items and organize them to make powerful builds. Then battle other players with it!
In Backpack Battles, you fight with your backpack full of items. It matters what you buy, and especially how you place it! The smarter you place your items, the stronger you will be!
Items come in different shapes, sizes, prices, and rarities. Combine them into even stronger equipment.
Brew a powerful potion, craft a legendary weapon, or hatch a dragon friend!You play against real builds of other players. See what they came up with, and counter them.
See how good you are in Ranked mode! Or have a relaxing time in Casual mode.
In both cases, take your time, as there are no timers at all!Choose a class depending on your play style. Do you want heavy crits or poison damage over time?”
Backpack Battles Review: The Good
- The Backpack Battles demo is free to play on Steam and other sites. So there’s no need to spend real money to enjoy the game. The full game is planned to release in April 2024.
- Backpack Battles at this time has no ads. None, nada. This could possibly be the best part of this Backpack Battles review.
- The graphics are cartoony and cute.
- There are a couple of characters available to play, the Ranger and Reaper (see image), each with some exclusive items and different strategies. More characters will be available in the full game.
- It is easy to play with your mouse by just clicking and moving items around on your PC screen.
- The system requirements for Backpack Battles are very low: 1GB of RAM and 200MB available space on your hard drive.
More good aspects of the game
- There are constant updates and fixes, it is obvious that the developer listens to its community and strives to create the best gaming experience possible for us players.
- The game loads and also updates very quickly.
- You can change the speed of the game.
- You can pause the game.
- The damage stats for the weapons you chose can be seen after and during a battle.
- As an online PvP game, your opponents’ strategies are varied, and constantly changing.
- Since each player has control over what items to choose and no time limit, the game does not enrage you when you lose a battle. You also have several “tries” (lives) before you have to start over.
- There are many different items to put in your backpack, each with different effects. Hence, no game is the same as another.
- It is fun to create recipe items (by merging/combining), some are harder to make than others. Also, some are stronger than others.
The Bad
It is hard to find anything wrong with this game, even in its current demo version. However, I know it’s a vital part of this Backpack Battles review, so I came up with these:
- Sometimes (rarely) you buy or sell something you did not want to, and there is no “cancel previous action” option.
- Sometimes you combine items (recipe) that you did not want to. For example, Goobert with Hero Sword or Goobert with Lightsaber.
Backpack Battles Review – Quick Tips
- Use the Unranked mode to create the toughest recipes such as Rainbow Goobert without losing rank. I have yet to make this recipe with Reaper!
- At the start, get a good early weapon or two, to avoid losing. For example, a Pan with food around it, or a couple of wooden swords plus whetstones.
- Don’t underestimate potions on a Potion Belt. They activate more than once.
- Keep your game up to date by closing it on Steam when you are done and then restarting it the next day or two.
- Test the different characters and weapon combinations to see what works best for you in Backpack Battles.
- You can watch streamers on Twitch and read blog articles such as this one about the best builds.
- Analyze your weapon damage stats (combat log) after or during battle to see what is best for you.
- Determine why you lost, also take note of opponents’ builds that you can run in future games.
- You can see many more Backpack Battles tips here.
- You can see the chances of different item rarities in the shop by hovering your cursor over the word “shop”. These percentages will change each round.
How could Backpack Battles be improved?
I humbly present a few suggestions on how to improve the game:
- Make it harder to accidentally sell something. Maybe move the sell chest a bit farther away from the backpack?
- Make it harder to accidentally combine recipe items. Make it clearer when 2 items are about to be merged.
- Add an option to turn the whole backpack (and contents) clockwise.
- An option to play against a friend in unranked mode would be fun, especially for streamers looking to interact with viewers.
- Clans could be implemented, and unique rewards (skins?) could be unlocked by members working together.
The Verdict: 9.5/10
I enjoyed writing this Backpack Battles review very much. This is the perfect casual game to challenge my brain and I love that there is no time limit between or during battles. You can easily chat with a streamer or multitask while you play the game on another tab. Need a break? No problem, the same game will be there when you get back to it.
The game is all about resource management. Each space in your backpack is crucial. I am frugal in real life and this translates well into the game, where every gold coin is important.
In the past I have enjoyed playing a lot of Tetris variants, starting with the black and white GameBoy version (even PvP via a cable). Backpack Battles reminds me of Tetris, where you must accomodate the pieces perfectly. It is like a trip to the past, but with huge improvements.
I feel very lucky, because I had been searching for a game that checked all the boxes:
- Free to play
- Popular (thus bloggable)
- New (bloggable)
- Playable on PC (hence streamable)
- Somewhat casual (so I can stream for hours without tiring)
- I love the game (so it doesn’t feel like a job)
After about a month of playing, my Battlepack Battles review rating for this demo version is 9.5 out of 10. It is exactly what I was looking for, without me knowing it existed. I will definitely be writing a lot of content about this game. I fully recommend this game, but watch out, it can make your day go by in a flash!
If you want additional in-game content and/or want to support the developer, you can wishlist Backpack Battles on Steam.