The Lamplighters League

Characteristic, original and engaging, The Lamplighters League is a small pearl that offers an interesting and engaging story, also strengthened by a very valid game design.

There is something about the story and tone of The Lamplighters League that has pulled me in - and it will do you too. Get used to the gameplay, the possibilities and the strategies at play and this is a game that becomes highly addictive.

The Lamplighter’s League may look like a chance to play out your own pulp adventure fantasy, but it turns out to be an intricate combat puzzle full of synergies and silly combos. While performance can be a bit of an issue and the story fails to leave much of an impact, the core gameplay is fun enough to keep this title memorable. It won’t deliver the instant mainstream appeal something like X-COM will have, but passionate fans of turn-based tactics shouldn’t miss this hidden (albeit slightly unpolished) gem.

At its best, The Lamplighters League is really charming with colourful characters and a somewhat clichéd but entertaining apocalyptic story. Unfortunately, it doesn't go all the way to the finish line and the repetitive structure is a bit of a let down.

The Lamplighters League doesn't quite live up to its promise and expectations. There's a fun mix of real time exploration and turn-based combat, but it's a step short of the best strategy games of the year – others like Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew have done it better. Given more time and more engaging narrative The Lamplighters League could have been great. It will have to settle for decent at best.

The Lamplighters League is a stylish and smart turn-based adventure from a team that absolutely knows its way around this sort of tactical action affair. There's plenty to like about this game's melding of XCOM-styled combat with a tarot card system that gives you lots of variables to play with as you build out your team of misfits and rogues. However, as things currently stand on Xbox, there are some fairly notable performance issues here that drag the experience down from one we'd love to recommend to something that's a harder proposition in its current form. With a few patches in place you're looking at another decent addition to Xbox Game Pass, but for now we recommend hanging back and waiting for these Lamplighters to receive a little more polish post-launch.

The Lamplighters League is a hard sell. The technical state of the game is abysmal, and while there are many of ideas taken from across the wide genre, there is really not a lot of things The Lamplighters League can truly call their own.