A few weeks ago we put out a video looking at some of our favourite demos from Steam Next Fest, and closed that list off with a rather vague mention of today's game, It Takes A War. It's one of those that's – as stated by YouTube big dogs noclip, and quoted on the game's very own Steam page – hard to talk about, at least not without revealing too much. My own analysis was therefore limited to what you'd expect to be thoroughly un-quoteable things, like rudely saying that the game "looks like a pretty poor Counter-Strike clone,” but if you go check, we’re there too…

I could only manage to talk about the game's demo for forty seconds in that video but, not content with the headache it previously gave me in terms of finding non-spoiler-ific things to say, we're back and looking at the full release.

Developer: Thomas Mackinnon
Publisher: pantaloon
Release: 6 November 2025
Retail Price (Steam): 5,89€/$5.99/£4.99

It Takes a War is (purportedly) a team-based shooter where communication is key, pitting players against one another in a relatively straightforward six-versus-six, round-based team deathmatch. It’s a throwback to the days where online first-person shooters were simpler: there're no bombs to defuse or hostages to save here: just two teams trying to take each other out. It’s not really the sort of thing we usually review here at IndieLoupe, with first person shooters not a genre we go in for, and, further to that, something that appears to be online-multiplayer-only being outside of our wheelhouse.

It’s also, arguably, outside of the developer’s wheelhouse – Mackinnon’s previous title was the subversive The Corridor, a short, comedic title about… well, walking down a corridor, and one which frequently messed with it’s player, so it’s a little bit odd for him to now put out what is clearly a (apologies for the pun) straight-shooting FPS that has the sole focus of providing – to quote: “Pure Combat” with “absolutely nothing under the surface to distract from VISCERAL TACTICAL ACTION!”

So, weird change, but plenty of other developers have proven that they can put out two games in drastically different genres and have them both be good, and I’ll never criticise someone for not playing it safe. I liked his previous game, so I wanted to give it a chance. So, “visceral, tactical action” — does it succeed?

I’m going to actually start by talking about not the game itself, but its community. I don’t know if my secret location in mainland Europe connects to the game’s Glasgow servers, or whether the game is particularly popular in Scotland – perhaps on account of its creator being from there – but either way, in my first (and only) match, all five of the other players on my team were Scottish. I suppose only one of them was a solo-queuer like me, and the other four were a group of friends, so it’s not that unusual, but perhaps noteworthy.

I say they were ‘friends’ – and, look, I know you’re here for a review of a video game rather than a one of a Scottish friendship group – but I could immediately sense some tension there. I know it’s not necessarily fair on the game to focus on it too much, but it’s my opinion that an online game is only as good as its community: after all, it’s got a huge impact on how enjoyable it is to play… and something didn’t sit quite right with me when it came to them. Before you attribute that to typical anti-Scottish sentiment coming from someone with this accent I’ll quickly play my “actually I’m Scottish” card, and move onto some solid reasons for that. I know it’s not the most professional thing in the world for me to put the audio here in my video. but literally the first thing one of them said upon hearing that there was a woman on the team was: “Another girl gamer?”

Which, to be fair, his friends did immediately call him out on, but it did feel like me and my teenage buddies getting giddy about such things a decade and a half ago, and the sort of embarrassing humour that you’d hope would’ve been left back in the early 2010s. Anyway, questionable first impressions of my teammates aside, let’s actually get back to the game. It’s not like you’re going to end up in a queue with them, right?

I'm on record saying we’re only going to do negative reviews if games really deserve them, so I’m a little conflicted here, but if Mackinnon and publishers pantaloon are going to take pride in us calling It Takes A War out on being a poor CounterStrike clone, I’m afraid I’m going to have to double down on it.

Between unfinished textures, out-of-place assets (I mean, what’s a whiteboard doing in the middle of a warzone courtyard?) grenades in my inventory that I couldn’t throw – that presumably nobody was able to throw, based on the complete lack of them that I saw in my match – there’s a lot left to be desired. That’s before we even consider my experience alternating between either getting dropped from out of nowhere, and shots seemingly not connecting for either me or my enemies — maybe it was lag or something from those potentially far away servers I was on, but I could see the gunplay here growing frustrating very quickly. When the relatively benign chatter of your teammates (“what’s everyone’s favourite type of crisps?”) is more engaging than the actual gameplay then perhaps there’s a problem.

And on problems, the bugs in this game are… weird. Unlike anything I’ve ever encountered before. I listened to my teammates theorising that they were meant to be features, but eventually it gets to the point that everything just… breaks.

And, as much fun as I’m having here, I think that’s where I too might have to break – from the pretence – because, hopefully obviously, but you never know: this isn’t actually an online FPS.

It Takes a War is incredibly good at feeling like it’s what it’s pretending it is. I promise that sentence makes sense, just think on it for a few seconds. It’s a weird thing to compliment a game on, but the surface-level shooter is the perfect level of mediocre, such that it’s still relatively enjoyable for the brief amount of time you’ll be playing it – it’s not so bad as to be implausible, but you don’t need to be a game critic – or an idiot who makes video game reviews on YouTube – to tell it’s more than a little rough around the edges. I don’t know why I’m beating ‘round the bush when I had the perfect description for it back when its demo came out: it looks – and now I can confirm, plays – like a pretty poor Counter-Strike clone, and that’s exactly what it’s trying to do, but, obviously, it’s also doing quite a bit more than that.

I mentioned Mackinnon’s other game, The Corridor, a little while back, and It Takes a War borrows from that previous title in a lot of ways, taking mechanics that might be familiar if you played it, but twisting them to change their tone significantly — where The Corridor is a (mostly) comedic experience, It Takes a War has a lot more bite to it.

That’s not to take away from The Corridor, which is a fantastic game in its own right, but in the content of It Takes a War it feels almost like a warm-up, like a proof-of-concept for ideas that can be taken a lot further and be played with more ambitiously, which is what Mackinnon has done here. This is the point where I’d usually give examples of how exactly he’s done that, but I think to do so would take away from your experience if you go and play the game yourself, which… yeah, you should. What I can say is that it goes disconcertingly meta in a way I’ve not experienced since Daniel Mullins’ Inscription, and that there were more than a couple of moments that made me genuinely uncomfortable.

There’s a little bit more I can add, and it’s mainly surrounding those arguably off-putting teammates of yours. It should hopefully come as no surprise that they have a significant part to play in the way the game unfolds, This might be a relic of the past – you kids with your “Discords” and all that – but anyone who’s ever been privy to a voice chat where there’s a group of people who clearly know one another (and you’re not one of them) should be immediately familiar with the feeling you get in It Takes a War. Through both the writing and the voice acting – hell, even the quality of the mics and the way people either talking over each other or with that slight delay – it’s incredibly authentic, to the point that you almost forget the other players in the game are… not.

The pacing of the game’s story – told primarily through the conversation between those characters – is exemplary: you’re only there for less than an hour, but it builds up from listening in on them talking about crisps to something… um, quite different. Even so, it’s done in a way that feels as natural as it can, given the game’s surreal nature.

There is also a point being made here: I’m sure that game’s finale will resonate differently from player to player, but if you’ve ever had a relatively tight group of people you’ve played games with, there are themes addressed which you’ll likely recognise from your own experiences, and, if you’re anything like me, it should give you some pause for thought.

I was obviously not foolish enough to enter It Takes A War thinking I was going to experience a real team-based tactical shooter, and yet I still got something entirely different to what I was expecting. For it to cover as many emotional bases as it does in such a short playtime – from humour to suspense to things that were – at least for me – pretty heavy, is quite the accomplishment, and one which I hope is rewarded with well-deserved recognition. My only hope is that people take that tiny bit of time needed to look under the surface and realise what this game is, without dismissing it as… well, you know. Maybe this video goes some way to helping with that.

It Takes A War is a wonderful piece of storytelling wrapped in an unassuming setting, and is awarded 9/10 by IndieLoupe.com.

The reviewed product was provided by the publisher.

Video review: IndieLoupe.com

Review: It Takes a War

It Takes a War

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