This really struck me during an early Dredge attack where I had to choose how to warn an unaware ally of the impending assault. The somber, oppressive tone spills over into every part of the narrative, with various decision you have to make during character interactions also resulting in you losing your weary warriors. Outside of combat, the brutality of the world does not let up.

There is no right decision, until there is At times, this tempted me to revert to an earlier save to “rescue” a character, but something about the harsh severity of The Banner Saga's fiction forced me to live with the outcome.

Watching them, and then the rest of my team, fall was frequently heart wrenching because it was hard not to become attached to the melancholic giants – especially when I had spent time leveling them up. Which fighters I would lose in these situations seemed random, but too often it seemed to be a Varl whose power I had overestimated in the face of a Dredge onslaught. Losing a battle can result in a character's permanent death. Keeping my ranged warriors at a distance and creating a wall with my more powerful troops may seem obvious, but it can be easy to forget that - despite being well armored - a human will quickly fall to a larger enemy's blows. Learning to balance the frail agility of humans with the tank-like Varl saw me lose a good handful of fighters before I learned how best to organize my troops. This gives an almost chess-like feel to the turn-based combat, as you learn how each character moves and fights to minimize your losses during each confrontation, while also choosing between the merits of directly attacking opponents health, or wearing down their defenses.

Battles are strategic affairs, which play out in gridded arenas.

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