Warbits+

Warbits
App icon
Developer(s)	Risky Lab
Publisher(s)	Risky Lab
Programmer(s)	Joseph Borghetti
Artist(s)	Reilly Stroope
Platform(s)	iOS, Google Play, Steam_(service)
Release	May 7, 2024 (iOS) (Google Play)
Genre(s)	Turn-based tactics
Mode(s)	Single-player, multiplayer

Warbits+ is a 2024 turn-based tactics video game developed and published by Risky Lab. It will be released on May 7, 2024, for iOS and Google Play, with a Steam_(service) version to follow later in the year. It is a remaster of Warbits that includes quality-of-life features, cross-platform play, and the ability to create community maps, among other additions. Like the original, the game revolves around a virtual war between rival nations. While such wars have become commonplace to settle political disputes without actual violence, a glitch in the simulation soon becomes threatening to all factions. The developers held an open beta for the game in September 2023.

Gameplay and plot

Warbits has tanks and other units from the red and blue armies battling along a road bordered by mountains and a river.

Like the original game, Warbits+ takes influence from the gameplay of the turn-based strategy video game series Advance Wars. While Wars has a modern military setting, Warbits pits two or more armies against each other in a stylized simulation of futuristic warfare. Each player controls a large army of soldiers and vehicles, with the objective usually being to wipe out the enemy's units or capture their headquarters. Neutral cities can be captured by soldiers to generate money, which can be spent on manufacturing new units at factories.

The most basic units are Infantry, with Light Infantry being fast and inexpensive, and Heavy Infantry being slower and more costly. The former is more useful for capturing buildings, while the latter is more effective against ground vehicles. Similarly, there are two types of armored vehicles, the lower-cost Light Mech and the more durable Heavy Mech. The Ranger unit, a sniper squad most effective on mountains, must wait a turn before attacking. Scout probes, the most inexpensive form of vehicle, are able to hover and cross shallow water, as well as illuminate large areas of the map. In addition to vehicles like the APC, Artillery, and flak cannon, the game also includes aircraft such as the Gunship, Fighter and Bomber. Each type of unit has their own strengths and weaknesses. For example, anti-aircraft guns are powerful against bombers. The game map includes different terrain such as towns and forests, which can effect a unit's defense, or conceal a unit in the fog of war.

The game has a single-player campaign as well as local and online multiplayer. The campaign of Warbits takes place in a previously war-torn world that agreed to replace deadly combat with a simulation game, allowing political disputes to be settled without costing "billions of lives". The player controls the Red Bear Republic, which responds to mysterious provocations from other nations. Strange structures also start appearing within the simulation that act as obstacles, as well as a new, unknown hostile faction, Purple Plasma. In the final act, it is revealed that the artificial intelligence controlling the simulation has rebelled, having become tired of their "bickering". The factions, desiring to continue using the simulation, band together to destroy the digital core of the AI, eventually emerging victorious.