Guards on Steam - User reviews, Price & Information
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Four heroes are facing a horde of evil! Ultimate abilities, magic artifacts, hero upgrades and clever tactics... All these will help to defeat the Boss.
Guards is a strategy, indie and adventure game
developed and published by Battlecruiser Games.
Released on August 19th 2016 is available on Windows, MacOS and Linux
in 3 languages: English, German and Russian.
It has received 468 reviews of which 399 were positive and 69 were negative resulting in a rating of 8.0 out of 10. 😊
The game is currently priced at 4.99€ on Steam.
The Steam community has classified Guards into these genres:
Media & Screenshots
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System requirements
These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.
Windows
- OS *: Microsoft Windows XP SP3 (32-bt) and newer
- Processor: Pentium or AMD 700mhz
- Memory: 1024 MB RAM
- Graphics: Video Card DX9 128mb
- DirectX: Version 10
- Storage: 263 MB available space
MacOS
- OS: Mac OS X 10.8 or newer
- Processor: Pentium or AMD 700mhz
- Memory: 1024 MB RAM
- Graphics: Video Card DX9 128mb
- Storage: 263 MB available space
Linux
- OS: Ubuntu 12.04+
- Processor: Pentium or AMD 700mhz
- Memory: 1024 MB RAM
- Graphics: Video Card DX9 128mb
- Storage: 400 MB available space
User reviews & Ratings
Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.
This strategic guard defense game is cleverly tactical and endlessly engaging! 🛡️👮 Outsmart intruders with smart placements 🎮, satisfying puzzles ✨, and escalating challenges. The intuitive mechanics and replay value make it a gem for strategy fans!
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Guards by Battlecruiser Games is an inventive yet minimalist take on the turn-based strategy genre, offering a distilled form of tactical play that relies on simplicity rather than sprawling systems. The game places you in charge of a team of four heroes standing against endless waves of enemies, fighting their way toward eventual bosses. At first glance, it appears like many other indie strategy titles—small scale, fantasy-themed, and straightforward—but its defining feature lies in how it transforms traditional combat into something more rhythm-based and positional. Instead of issuing multiple commands or micromanaging units, the player’s only real move is to swap the positions of two characters across the battlefield’s lanes. That small decision, repeated and refined, becomes the beating heart of Guards’ design. Every swap changes the tactical situation, triggering attacks, defenses, and abilities in a delicate dance of timing and placement. What makes this system interesting is how much strategic nuance emerges from its apparent simplicity. Moving a unit to the front line commits them to attack but also exposes them to danger; pulling them back allows them to rest, heal, or charge up special abilities. Each hero—ranging from melee fighters to ranged specialists and healers—has distinct strengths, and learning how to cycle them efficiently becomes the essence of mastery. This minimalism forces the player to think not in terms of micro-control, but of tempo, flow, and foresight. When it all clicks, the gameplay feels like a carefully orchestrated routine, where each swap is part of a rhythm that keeps your formation alive against increasingly complex enemy patterns. The design encourages both intuition and planning, striking a rare balance between accessibility and thoughtful play that few indie strategy games manage to achieve. Visually, Guards embraces a straightforward fantasy style that focuses more on clarity than spectacle. The art direction is clean and functional, allowing players to read the battlefield easily, though it rarely surprises or amazes. Environments are limited, often reusing the same backgrounds and monster types, giving the experience a sense of uniformity that some players may find repetitive over time. The characters themselves are familiar archetypes—a witcher, a healer, an archer, a peasant—but their mechanical roles make them distinct enough to feel purposeful. The overall presentation feels more reminiscent of a tabletop skirmish or a board game brought to life than of a grand tactical adventure, and that approach suits its design philosophy. Guards is not about world-building or storytelling; it’s about learning the system and thriving within its constraints. Progression in Guards unfolds through a steady unlock system that rewards persistence. Players can earn in-game currency to upgrade heroes, purchase new equipment, and recruit stronger allies. This layer of advancement adds incentive to replay levels, but it also reveals the game’s weaker side—the grind. Because the structure revolves around replaying waves of enemies, repetition becomes unavoidable. While unlocking new heroes brings brief bursts of excitement, the underlying gameplay loop remains largely unchanged from start to finish. Without additional mission objectives, branching maps, or varied enemy strategies, the formula can begin to feel static. For those who enjoy fine-tuning small tactical puzzles, the repetition can be meditative and satisfying; for others, it may lead to fatigue long before the game runs its course. Despite these limitations, Guards carries an understated charm that makes it hard to dismiss. It doesn’t pretend to compete with larger strategy franchises or deliver sweeping narratives; instead, it offers a lean, tightly designed system that rewards short bursts of focus and experimentation. Its quick pacing and easy-to-understand mechanics make it an appealing entry point for players new to the genre, while veterans can appreciate the precision of its tactical rhythm. Each battle is a compact test of resource management, positioning, and timing, and the game’s minimalistic style ensures that every mistake and victory feels earned through player input rather than luck or spectacle. It’s the kind of title that invites return visits not for its story, but for the quiet satisfaction of executing a plan perfectly. Ultimately, Guards stands as an example of how simplicity can be both a strength and a limitation. Its design philosophy—distilling strategy down to one essential mechanic—creates a refreshing experience that is both approachable and clever, but that same focus also narrows its long-term appeal. The repetition, the modest visuals, and the absence of narrative depth keep it from achieving greatness, yet within its small frame lies a game that knows exactly what it wants to be. For players seeking a quick, clever, and compact strategy experience that values mechanics over complexity, Guards delivers a satisfying and thoughtful diversion. It may not linger in memory as an epic, but its purity of design ensures it stands apart as a rare example of elegance through restraint. Rating: 8/10
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I liked it, but as you can see, only for about 10 hours. I could have pushed for 20 but I have a gazillion unplayed games. I recommend it depending on the price. Because it's repetitive and a little slow, it's good to make this your SECOND game and just play it occasionally rather than trying to have a marathon session.
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Tl;dr: Guards is a surprisingly fun game that has an easy-to-understand gameplay loop as well as a few challenges for those who seek them. Guards has a really simple gameplay loop that is easy to understand and fun. Each turn, you swap the places of two of your heroes, and they perform either special or normal moves depending on how you swap them. When a hero swaps places from the second row to the first row, they perform a special attack. Your aim is to create a synergistic team and survive through 10 levels, which consist of monsters with special abilities and a boss in the end. For a game made in 2016, I must say that I'm quite surprised by its quality. The first few hours were really fun, and I finished all the game modes in about 15 hours. The three different game modes differ in terms of enemy stats and abilities, and they each offer quite a challenge. One of the not-so-great aspects of Guards is that most of the time, the optimal play is either not important, or it is too blatant. This is because as you defeat enemies, you don't know where the next ones will spawn or what their types will be. I'm not saying it would be better that way, but due to this, Guards relies quite a lot on luck at certain encounters, and when it does not, it is quite easy to beat. The progression in Guards is in three main ways: consumables, hero upgrades, and team upgrades. It is a must to fail in the game a few times to actually be able to beat it since you need more stats to overcome enemy waves. This results in a lot of grind to beat the nightmare and hell game modes, as they require a lot of currency to spend to have a chance. So, if you are not a fan of grinding, the game should still last you a few hours before you are bored of it. Finally, I must say that a couple of achievements are problematic in Guards. One of them, "TERMINATOR," does not seem to unlock even when you complete its condition, and the "SAGE" achievement seems to be bugged, as the game does not give you enough "stars" to finish it. At least that's what happened with my three end-game saves. In short, Guards quite surprised me with its quality, and I easily had a few hours of fun with it and even finished the game in all three game modes in over 15 hours. If you don't mind a couple of achievements being stuck, I would suggest you play Guards, as it is quite affordable when it is on discount and provides a few hours of fun at the least.
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This is a fun little strategy roguelike that is clearly set up in mobile game format, but for some reason was released for PC as a one time purchase instead. It's simple but engaging and can be bought on sale for essentially free. The only downside is that you can't save your progress mid-game and some runs can take 20-30 minutes. Looking forward to the sequel!
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Frequently Asked Questions
Guards is currently priced at 4.99€ on Steam.
Guards is currently not on sale. You can purchase it for 4.99€ on Steam.
Guards received 399 positive votes out of a total of 468 achieving a rating of 7.97.
😊
Guards was developed and published by Battlecruiser Games.
Guards is playable and fully supported on Windows.
Guards is playable and fully supported on MacOS.
Guards is playable and fully supported on Linux.
Guards is a single-player game.
Guards does not currently offer any DLC.
Guards does not support mods via Steam Workshop.
Guards does not support Steam Remote Play.
Guards is enabled for Steam Family Sharing. This means you can share the game with authorized users from your Steam Library, allowing them to play it on their own accounts. For more details on how the feature works, you can read the original Steam Family Sharing announcement or visit the Steam Family Sharing user guide and FAQ page.
You can find solutions or submit a support ticket by visiting the Steam Support page for Guards.
Data sources
The information presented on this page is sourced from reliable APIs to ensure accuracy and relevance. We utilize the Steam API to gather data on game details, including titles, descriptions, prices, and user reviews. This allows us to provide you with the most up-to-date information directly from the Steam platform.
Additionally, we incorporate data from the SteamSpy API, which offers insights into game sales and player statistics. This helps us present a comprehensive view of each game's popularity and performance within the gaming community.
Last Updates| Steam data | 23 January 2026 22:11 |
|---|---|
| SteamSpy data | 27 January 2026 03:39 |
| Steam price | 29 January 2026 20:47 |
| Steam reviews | 27 January 2026 21:58 |
If you'd like to dive deeper into the details about Guards, we invite you to check out a few dedicated websites that offer extensive information and insights. These platforms provide valuable data, analysis, and user-generated reports to enhance your understanding of the game and its performance.
- SteamDB - A comprehensive database of everything on Steam about Guards
- SteamCharts - Analysis of Guards concurrent players on Steam
- ProtonDB - Crowdsourced reports on Linux and Steam Deck Guards compatibility
Game modes
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Online players
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Developer
Battlecruiser Games
Publisher
Battlecruiser Games
Release
19 Aug 2016
Platforms