Every Day We Fight Changes Up The Strategy Formula With A Unique Roguelike Twist - Early Access Preview

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Every Day We Fight was provided by Hooded Horse. Thank you!

Update 7/9/25: Initially, I missed that the game has controller support since it didn't default to the gamepad control scheme. I have updated this preview with my thoughts on the controller support that is in the game right now.

I have played a lot of strategy games in my day, and one of the ones that sticks out to me is XCOM 2. I love top-down RPGs, and XCOM goes over and above with its story and in-depth mechanics. Imagining a game like this in a roguelike fashion would be awesome, and that's exactly what Every Day We Fight is set up to do. There's a lot of interesting mechanics in the game, and while not all of them are as realized as they could be, Every Day We Fight shows a lot of promise for an early access release.

There are a couple of features that really stand out to me, but my favorite is the first-person camera angles during combat. The turn-based strategy combat loop is very similar to other games in the genre. You control your team from a top-down view, move them across the map, and use their weapons to take down the enemy team with a specific set amount of AP you have. You can use a primary and secondary weapon, different skills, and items you pick up, like grenades and bandages, to change up your strategy.

However, the big difference here is how you attack. While using skills and items is as simple as clicking and choosing where to use them, shooting enemies requires going into a first-person view and aiming down your sights. As someone who enjoys first-person shooters and being able to choose different parts to target enemies, this mechanic fits both of those, and I love it. The satisfaction of moving near an enemy and blasting them in the head with a shotgun and watching their body fly, or shooting someone from far away with a rifle, is engaging and glorious.

My only issue is how floaty it can feel when shooting them from further away. Bullets travel a bit slow, so when enemies are moving around while you are shooting, it can be hard to gauge where to shoot to actually hit them.

I also enjoy Every Day We Fight's skill system and how important it is to utilize. There is progression and leveling up to upgrade and gain new skills, which are definitely going to be necessary to use. Each character has their own unique skill, like Vivian creating a Hologram she can throw to distract enemies or Dylan being able to knock out an enemy that comes near him, as well as classic skills like Overwatch. Some of these can be optionally triggered while the enemy is taking their turn, which I like a lot. The skills are varied, and coupled with the first-person shooting, combat in general feels more unique than in other games.

Some combat encounters can be very difficult if skills aren't used, so it really does feel necessary to strategically utilize them. In the first encounter after the Prologue, I tried it 5 times without skills and couldn't kill off all three waves of aliens, but as soon as I tried once while using the skills provided, I got through with ease. It did feel satisfying when using all of those skills, so I am glad I was forced to lose constantly to learn how essential it is to use them.

Outside of combat, we will roam around the open world, finding secondary combat encounters and new items. There are different missions and challenges to find, and there are weapon caches to find that unlock new weapons and modifications for them. The gear you find in one loop will be available in the next when you die, so scavenging is essential. The open world is a bit tedious to run around, but I do like the random combat encounters and roguelike mechanics, which keep your level and unlocked skills as well.

It all feels very much like it belongs in early access, so there are bugs and tedious issues here and there, but the core components are solid, and I like all the ideas. A roguelike that has open-world, solid progression, and unique first-person and skill combat kept me quite interested, even throughout the problems. I really like the story as well, which treads into sci-fi territory fighting aliens, but I won't talk too much about it just yet. The game definitely needs to be worked on, and I think that makes it perfect for early access.

As far as Steam Deck performance goes, it's definitely not ready for prime time yet. The game does have controller support, which I missed when I wrote this initially, due to the default controller scheme being keyboard and mouse. The controller support is solid and definitely helpful with aiming, maneuvering, and especially panning the camera. Following along as enemies run away from shots is significantly easier with the gamepad support, and I appreciate how easy it is to swap floors and sprint. Overall, it's solid controller support, and it makes playing on a gamepad a lot easier, but there are some oddities here and there.

Aiming down sights by tapping the right trigger and swapping between your teammates, only using LB instead of both LB and RB to select them, can be jarring. Crouching/sneaking also doesn't feel as natural due to it being on the B button instead of pressing the right joystick down, but it was easier to get used to this, and I appreciate how easy it is to switch aiming sides when hiding using the right joystick. I know this isn't a first-person shooter, but adopting some of the norms, like left trigger to aim down sights and using LB and RB to select your team from the left and right, from those games could make getting used to the controls a bit easier.

I have brought up these little nuisances with the developers, so they are aware of these findings as well.

The actual performance can vary depending on the quality settings, but it performs decently. There are some unoptimized spots that do bring performance down, but I would say at Medium/High settings, we can get a nice 30 FPS most of the time. With some fine-tuning to optimization and controller support, this will be a great game to play on the Deck, but it definitely needs some love during early access.

The big question to answer now is whether or not the game feels like a worthwhile investment through this period, and I think it is. Developer Signal Space Lab is merging together different mechanics in unique ways, and the core concepts of those are very clear in the experience so far. The combat is still awesome even with the minor problems and I love the first-person camera for shooting at enemies. The roguelike mechanics are solid, and while I hope for a more engrossing open world, I never felt dissuaded from playing when walking around. I can't wait to see how Every Day We Fight develops, and I look forward to experiencing the rest of the game as it goes through early access.

Every Day We Fight will be released on July 10th in early access, and there's a demo available now to try for yourself.

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