Broken Roads lets you roam the ravaged Australian Outback. But is it worth saving, or will you revel in the chaos?
Drop Bear Bytes is a studio based out of Torquay, Australia. They have no publicly released games under their belt. Instead, most of their portfolio links to publisher Versus Evil who helped release games like The Banner Saga and Stray Souls. However, in 2023 Versus Evil was officially closed and their IPs were folded into their parent, tinyBuild – including Broken Roads.
Sometime in the near future, a nuclear war in Australia wiped out 80% of life. The survivors eked out what little life they could, and were able to slowly rebuild. Now, two generations later you are ready to set out and make a name for yourself in this desolate wasteland.
The first order of business is to select a background in Broken Roads. This combines class with a preliminary story of why you are adventuring out. Hired Guns are mercenary bodyguards who fight by any means. Surveyors are explorers who are able to make tactical choices both in combat and while examining the environment. Barter Crews prefer to trade and gather, typically delegating tasks to companions or healing the wounded. Finally, the Jackroos are salt-of-the-earth folk who would rather make use of devices than outright fight.
You are also given a test to determine your starting morality. Broken Roads presents a series of six questions that can answered via four outlooks. Humanists favor dignity and helping those in need. Nihilists see that nothing in life really matters and consequences are pointless. Machiavellians are all about end results, even if with wind up harming others. Utilitarians believe in outcomes that favor the majority, even if a minority (including themselves) is unsatisfied.
This is presented in a circular design with each morality occupying a quadrant. They are separated clockwise: Utilitarian-Humanist-Nihilist-Machiavellian. As you make a decision your mortality will swing clockwise or counter-clockwise accordingly. This makes it nearly impossible to be Utilitarian-Nihilist or Humanist-Machiavellian. But you can dabble in three at once, such as a Humanist with some Nihilist and Utilitarian tendencies.
Moral choices also affect combat, as a form of reflection on which the character deeply is. Utilitarians are better at making area-of-effect moves and get a bonus for helping weakened allies. Humanists deal more damage on a critical hit but lose initiative if they have a critical miss. Nihilists will jump out of the way of ranged attacks, letting friends or foes take the damage instead. Machiavellians will start the next encounter with buffs if they previously performed well, or penalties if they are knocked out.
Character stats are broken up into pairs of attributes that affect skill ratings. Strength determines melee combat and hit points, while Agility gives a more critical hit and dodge rate; the two combine into Fortitude. Resolve improves damage reduction, while Awareness is better for ranged attacks; the two combine into Temperance. Intelligence gives more actions per turn of combat, while Charisma aids with speaking with others; they pair into Wisdom.
Fortitude skills in Broken Roads are mainly melee-focused by upping direct damage or improving resistance at the end of your turn. Temperance favors ranged attacks, including automatically attacking approaching targets. Finally, Wisdom helps with healing, item use, and assisting allies.
Linking these attributes does seem a bit of an odd choice and makes for some strange builds. For example, you might want to invest in Resolve to improve your ability to tank, but in turn, are encouraged to use guns from a distance. A person with a lot of combat actions might also wind up being the best negotiator who can avoid encounters entirely. The idea seems to have more diverse generalists who spread points around but winds up clunky in practice.
Combat will be a vast majority of what occurs in Broken Roads. While being passive is possible, it will often require beginning a fight and then retreating. Battles use a turn-based system very akin to that found in Divinity Original Sin 2 or Baldur’s Gate 3.
Each character has a number of actions to move, shoot, swing, or use items to heal or trigger. There is meant to be a lot of tactical depth, but most encounters fall into the classic Dungeons and Dragons pratfall of “rocket tag”: kill the enemy before they get a chance to respond. Being defensive or strategic is usually unfavorable.
Each background has a unique opening scenario, taking place in different locations and determining starting companions in Broken Roads. They all eventually arrive in the main city of Brookton Town but under different circumstances. Hired Guns accompany the sniper Ella, as they find a looted caravan on the Ki road. A family has been attacked and the father killed, while the son is near suicidal and either must be talked down or goaded to end things.
Surveyors also meet Ella, but depart in a separate direction with her comrade Jake – who fights more like a rogue. They arrive in the region of Aldersyde and discover an injured trader. It seems the townsfolk have become paranoid and are shooting at anyone that comes along.
Barter Crews have the most confusing setup. They are asked to retrieve several items but are almost immediately thrust into an ambush to recover a lost helmet. Since you are solo, it is very possible to wind up in a combat encounter you are not at all built for, requiring an immediate restart.
Last, Jackaroos are farm hands at Taylor Farms, a local Brookton Town establishment helped run by farmer Sean. After herding sheep and collecting their “fertilizer”, the farm is attacked by a gang of raiders and many of the animals scatter in the brawl. You must purchase new ones from peddlers in another town.
Eventually, all backgrounds encounter Mick, the mayor and main leader of Brookton Town. He believes the raiders harassing Taylor Farm might be related to the troubles in the other scenarios. But, the same bandits strike and destroy Brookton Town in a blaze. Jake and Sean are lost in the chaos, and you barely regroup with Ella. You decide it is time to head somewhere safer: the settlement of Merredin.
As an isometric RPG similar to Fallout or Disco Elysium, you’ll spend most of the time clicking on the environment to interact. This is where Broken Roads’ UI starts to make some weird decisions. By default, points of interest are not marked or highlighted. You must move your mouse over specific objects to find out if they can be selected. This can lead to a lot of wildly roaming and randomly clicking until something happens.
You can also hold down the Tab key to show icons and character names. However, the particular icons do not indicate the priority or necessity of the quest. Some items are marked with a “magnifying glass” to search, while a “hand” is to pick up. But, there is no sense of what is flavor text, optional, or mandatory. In one instance, a random unassuming cart was mission-critical to progress the Barter Crew intro.
Despite it being a lengthy quest-based RPG, Broken Roads has a poor journal and quest interface. The next mission is not automatically displayed, nor can you have more than one mission active at a time. You must constantly go into your journal and toggle and manually pull up the next main quest or side quest. You may even fail dozens of quests because no flyby text ever appeared to showcase that it was accepted. At times it can feel like there is no direction after a cutscene has ended, only for context to be buried in another menu.
Another strange choice is that menus do not actually pause the game. Your team can be in the middle of movement, but you decide that you want to check your inventory. But then the screen suddenly shifts as you are trying to adjust gear. At other times it might be a scripted NPC who has come over and closed your UI when you are trying to level up.
Broken Roads also has you explore multiple locations to complete quests, separated into their own loading screens. Sometimes these areas are tiny and arbitrary. You might sit through a load, only to make one dialogue choice, and then load back into the last area. Why couldn’t several spots be just one large map?
Broken Roads is partially voiced by Australian English actors. This helps make the setting feel authentic and a bit insular – a nuclear war did cut off the world after all. Most cutscenes will have full narration announcing what is happening. But, in-game dialogue is a mixed bag. Sometimes characters will voice the first few lines, their entire speech, or nothing at all.
The sound design also has volume and mixing issues. Everything sounds so distant and has little audible impact. Hitting someone feels and sounds like attacking a damaged sponge mob in an MMO. If it wasn’t for the flyby numbers and HP bars it would be easy to parse if someone has really been injured.
Broken Roads seems to be grabbing from several different RPGs and attempting to mash them together. It has the fighting of Baldur’s Gate 3, with moral choices like Disco Elysium, but the old-school presentation of relics like The Temple of Elemental Evil. If you happen to love all three of those, Broken Roads could work well. But, if you dislike even one component it will dampen the whole package.
Overall, Broken Roads feels like a game plucked out of the late 90s era of RPGs. It lacks a lot of quality-of-life features seen in most modern games. But, for some that lack of hand-holding may be what you’re looking for. The Australian Outback theme is rather unique, so that might be an additional appeal. Otherwise, Broken Roads is lacking in cohesion and is really only for the most die-hard RPG fans.
