Quick answer: A real-time tactics RPG from Square Enix and Lancarse with a genuinely good combat engine, a Game of Thrones composer, and a launch price of $59.99 that almost nobody thought it deserved. Critics landed at 70 on OpenCritic with only 42% recommending it, and Steam users sit at 49% positive. The crippling difficulty problem was patched in March 2023 with a Very Hard mode and a scaled New Game+. It now sells for under $20, which is the price it should have launched at.
Original illustration created for IGGG Guides.
2022 was a crowded year for strategy RPGs. Triangle Strategy, Tactics Ogre: Reborn and Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope all landed within months of each other, and The DioField Chronicle is the one almost nobody talks about.
That is partly deserved and partly a pricing accident. The combat engine underneath is good. What sat on top of it at launch was a campaign so easy it never asked you to use it, sold at sixty dollars.
The scores, and the one that matters most
Original illustration created for IGGG Guides.
| Measure | Score | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Metacritic, Xbox Series | 78 | The only "generally favorable" version, from a small sample |
| Metacritic, PS5 | 71 | 26 reviews, not one negative but 58% mixed |
| Metacritic, Switch / PC | 67 / 66 | Switch hit hardest by performance complaints |
| OpenCritic | 70, "Fair" | 72 critics, only 42% recommend, bottom 44% of all games |
| Steam users | 49% positive | "Mixed". The single most useful number here |
Individual reviews spread wide. COGconnected gave it 95. GameSpot gave it 5 out of 10 and called it "a pedestrian real-time tactics game that suffers from a lack of imagination". Metro gave it 4. IGN, Destructoid and Nintendo Life all landed on 7.
The recurring note in the mid-range reviews is the one that matters: not that it is bad, but that it is not worth sixty dollars. We have run into that exact distinction before, in our Kamiwaza review, and as there it changes the answer completely once the price moves.
The combat engine is the good part
The system is called Real Time Tactical Battle, and mechanically it works. You command four units in real time, pause whenever you like to queue special abilities, and direct everyone individually or as a group. Pathfinding is reliable, unit selection is precise, and the pause-and-plan rhythm is genuinely satisfying for the first few hours.
You recruit sixteen characters across four classes. Four go into battle, and four more fill support slots, lending their abilities to the active units rather than fighting themselves. It is a tidy idea.
The presentation backs it up. Art direction comes from Isamu Kamikokuryo, previously art director on Final Fantasy XII and XIII, and the score is by Ramin Djawadi and Brandon Campbell, the composers behind Game of Thrones. For a mid-budget strategy game that is a remarkable amount of talent, and it is the thing almost every review praised without reservation.
And then the difficulty collapses it
Here is the problem the launch reviews all hit. The player is wildly overpowered. Energy pools are enormous, the best abilities are cheap and recharge fast, even healers hit hard, and summons that clear entire formations cost nothing but a gauge that fills quickly. Enemies drop healing items constantly, and power-ups sit around the battlefield for no reason.
Battlefields are flat, with no elevation and no interesting routes, reused heavily across the campaign. Enemy variety is thin enough that you never need to adapt. The result is a tactics game where the correct tactic is to charge forward using whatever is off cooldown, and the skill tree hands out bonuses too small to change that.
A genuinely good engine, with nothing to use it on.
Six months later, they fixed it
This is the part missing from essentially every review of this game, because every review was written at launch.
On 6 March 2023, Square Enix released free update version 1.20, and it targets the difficulty complaint directly:
- A "Very Hard" difficulty setting, added above the existing options
- "Extra Mode", a New Game+ variant where enemies appear at post-game levels from Chapter 1 onwards, while you carry over your levels, weapons and skill trees. This is the closest thing to the rebalance the launch reviews were asking for
- A new scenario, "Waltaquin's Story", playable after Chapter 5, with a new Basement camp area and a Mind Map system
- A new weapon type, Magic Tomes, bringing Necromancy to summon Skeletal Knights and Necrotame to transform units into Skeletal Dragons
- A new boss, new gear and stability fixes on Switch and Xbox
Denuvo was also removed from the PC version the day before, on 5 March 2023, which improved load times.
Set expectations honestly. Version 1.20 adds difficulty options, it does not redesign the battlefields, the enemy variety or the mission structure. Flat maps and repeated objectives are still flat maps and repeated objectives. What changed is that the combat engine now has something to push against. If the lack of challenge was your objection, this helps. If the repetition was, it does not. No further major updates or DLC have shipped since.
The story is the weakest part
Most of it happens at headquarters, with characters discussing a war you have mostly been told about rather than shown. The cast is large and thinly drawn, the protagonist Andrias drifts somewhere between morally grey and simply unpleasant without the writing doing the work to make that land, and significant events arrive as reported dialogue.
The voice acting is good and the characters look great. Neither compensates for a plot that reads like a longer story cut down.
How it did, and what happened after
Badly, by Square Enix's standards. The Switch version sold 6,415 physical copies in its first week in Japan, eighth on the chart, with the PS4 version at 3,057. Third-party trackers estimate roughly 23,000 to 45,000 Steam units, which are estimates rather than publisher figures and should be read as scale only.
In March 2023 Square Enix's then-president Yosuke Matsuda said that "many of the new small and mid-sized titles we launched this year did not perform as well as we had expected". He named no games, but DioField launched into the same window as Valkyrie Elysium, Star Ocean: The Divine Force and Harvestella, and is widely read as being among them. The company subsequently wrote off a reported £112 million in cancelled and rescoped projects for the year ending March 2024.
No sequel has been announced. The same squeeze is the subject of why big budget games stopped being fun, and the outcome for one studio is in our Saints Row review.
The price moved, and so does the verdict
Original illustration created for IGGG Guides.
Launch pricing was $59.99 standard, $74.99 Digital Deluxe and $169.99 for a Collector's Edition that included an actual board game. Read the negative reviews back and the price is doing most of the work in them.
It now routinely sells around $18 to $24, with tracked lows near $15 on PC and physical Switch copies turning up under $20. At a third of the launch price, with the difficulty options patched in and a free demo available on every platform, this is a different proposition.
Buy, wait or skip
| You are | Verdict | Why |
|---|---|---|
| A real-time tactics fan | Buy under $20 | The RTTB system is good, and Very Hard finally lets you use it |
| You bounced off it at launch | Reconsider | Extra Mode scales enemies from Chapter 1. That is the fix you wanted |
| Here for story and characters | Skip | A thin plot delivered mostly as briefing-room dialogue |
| Deciding between 2022's tactics games | Play the others first | Triangle Strategy and Tactics Ogre: Reborn are both stronger |
| On Switch | Check performance notes | Lowest-scoring version at 67, mostly over technical issues |
| Looking at full price | Absolutely not | Nearly every negative review is a $59.99 complaint. Do not be the person who pays it |
Verdict
A good combat system attached to a game that did not deserve its launch price, improved by a patch nobody reviewed. The real-time tactics engine is genuinely well built, the art and the Djawadi score are far better than the budget suggests, and the March 2023 update finally gives the combat something to fight. The story is flat, the battlefields are repetitive, and no update changed either. At under twenty dollars it is worth a look. At sixty it never was. Assessed against version 1.20 and later.
Frequently asked questions
Is the game still too easy?
Not if you use the options added in March 2023. Update 1.20 introduced a "Very Hard" difficulty and an "Extra Mode" New Game+ where enemies appear at post-game levels from Chapter 1. Reviews written at launch predate both.
How long is it?
Around 25 hours for the main story, about 31 with side content and 32 to complete. That is fairly standard for the genre, not short.
Who composed the music?
Ramin Djawadi and Brandon Campbell, both of whom worked on Game of Thrones. The score is among the most consistently praised parts of the game.
How much should I pay?
Under $20. It launched at $59.99 and that price drove most of the criticism. It now regularly sells between $15 and $24 depending on platform and store.
What is in the free update?
Version 1.20, released 6 March 2023: the Waltaquin's Story scenario, Very Hard difficulty, Extra Mode, the Magic Tome weapon type with Necromancy and Necrotame skills, a new boss, a new camp area and stability fixes. It is free to all owners.
Is there a sequel or more DLC?
No. Version 1.20 was the last significant update and nothing further has been announced. Square Enix indicated in March 2023 that several of its mid-sized 2022 releases underperformed.
Which version is best?
Xbox Series scored highest at 78, though from few reviews. PS5 sits at 71. Switch is lowest at 67, largely on performance. There is a free demo on every platform, which is the sensible way to decide.
Where to go next
- Live by the Sword: Tactics, another strategy RPG with a good idea and a difficulty problem
- Kamiwaza: Way of the Thief, another game whose verdict flipped entirely on price
- Saints Row, and what patches can and cannot rescue
- SIGNALIS, released a month later and showing what a small budget can do
- Why mid-sized games keep getting squeezed out
- Why launch reviews stop being true
- Browse more Action and Adventure guides
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