Generally favorable reviews - based on 37 Critics What's this?

User Score

Mixed or average reviews- based on 199 Ratings

Your Score
0 out of 10
Rate this:
  • 10
  • 9
  • 8
  • 7
  • 6
  • 5
  • 4
  • 3
  • 2
  • 1
  • 0
  • 0
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 25 out of 37
  2. Negative: 1 out of 37
  1. 100
    Complicated, difficult, different. A true strategy game for the gamers with classical tastes, who have time and will. It's also a pleasant blast from the past, when a genre template was not an option. [Issue#233]
  2. Aug 15, 2013
    Just don’t pick this up hoping to graduate from the campaign to a major and thriving online community – for all practical purposes, consider this to be a singleplayer game first and foremost. And a damn good one at that.
  3. Aug 5, 2013
    Every individual component works so well that you might even wish the game would have focused more on a specific area or genre. This doesn’t hurt the game, but like its aerial controls, it leaves you wanting more. Still, Dragon Commander manages to combine all of its different gameplay elements and delivers one cohesive experience that's highly worth playing.
  4. Sep 2, 2013
    A wonderful and addictive combination of different genres, filled with humor and character. Well worth checking for gamers who are after something fresh.
  5. Aug 19, 2013
    Divinity: Dragon Commander is an atypical but all in all interesting mix of different genres.
  6. Sep 5, 2013
    A weird but interesting hybrid that mixes RTS, RPG, board game and trading card game mechanics in one delightful experience. Unfortunately, even if the mix works, the singular gameplay components aren’t deep enough and the game itself is mined by many minor issues.
  7. Aug 13, 2013

See all 37 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 27 out of 49
  2. Negative: 14 out of 49
  1. Aug 6, 2013
    This is not an RTS. Or rather, it's as much an RTS as Skyrim is a game about crafting weapons. It's a game that's hard to judge, because it's three very different things, an RPG, a TBS, and an RTS, all wrapped up with a card game on top and a garnish of action gameplay.

    The amazing thing is that in all of it, what comes out is a fantastic game. The graphics are beautiful, the characters are well-realized, and the disparate parts feel like separate parts of a whole experience. Yes, the strategy is a little shallow--but that's because it's not the whole game. The game as a whole is about being, fittingly, a dragon commander. And it's great.
  2. Aug 13, 2013
    Phenomenal game. Combines a number of successful features from other games and blends it all into something unique and all it's own.

    takes a number of cues from Starcraft 2, in particular exploring your ship and interacting with crew, upgrading your units and researching upgrades and then throws in certain political elements by giving you a council of advisors and 6 races to appease. Between missions those advisors often bring political issues to your attention and let you choose whether to approve or disapprove them, which will have ramifications on your standing with certain races/factions. The issues brought to your attention are reflective of modern quandaries, such as legalising marijuana, gay marriage or conscription.

    It's worth noting too that all of the characters are delightfully voice acted and extremely likeable/hateable. There's no sincere generic fantasy tropes or cheesy voice acting here. There *are* fantasy tropes but they're used mainly for humour, as well as to highlight the political issues (the elves are ultra liberals and a conservative's nightmare, the Dwarves ultra conservative, and the Undead religious fundamentalists).

    The campaign itself is functional enough, very reminiscent of Battle For Middle Earth 2's custom campaigns, whereby you upgrade provinces and buy units and invade enemy lands over a series of turns (build/buy and attack/defend). The battles themselves too are functional, with the units and combat bringing to mind Rise of Legends and the first Battle For Middle Earth respectively, with free building slot points scattered over the map that must be contested.

    In all, a unique game with nothing else quite like it out there, and oozes charm.
  3. Aug 9, 2013
    Its very enjoyable game a great mix of RTS and RPG. I really like political choices u have to make and how they affect gameplay. Im
    not big fan of RTS but in this game im enjoying it very much. The dragon form in RTS battles is very clever invention and handy in dire situations. Story is predictable but still good enough to keep u interested. Expand
  4. Aug 7, 2013
    You know how people say that things like religion and politics are best left out of conversations with friends? Divinity: Dragon Commander puts these concerns front and center, and places you in the hot seat to make all the tough calls, delivering a real-time strategy experience that, though lacking refinement in some areas, makes your decisions in the throne room as important as the ones on the battlefield. Jumping into an AI skirmish to get a feel for the mechanics first, I was initially unnerved by what I saw. The lack of any fog of war, combined with the wide-open tech tree, made combat feel spineless and unstructured compared to the precise builds and attack timings of StarCraft 2. The art direction is similarly without organization, with pastel and base colors fighting a little war of their own while I tried to reconcile the steampunk unit designs with their arboreal, fantasy surroundings. After being all but slapped in the face with a generic looking “VICTORY!” screen, and being spat back out to the main menu, I anticipated a long, bumpy road ahead of me.
    Split into three different game phases a point-and-click exploration of your ship and its inhabitants, a risk-style world map around involves strategically placing units in turn-based gameplay, and sprawling battlefields where forward-thinking is crucial Divinity: Dragon Commander is clearly trying to appeal to gamers of widely varying preferences and sensibilities. Though the three separate gameplay phases are tied together and balanced quite well, the RPG elements of Divinity: Dragon Commander are significantly more understated than the RTS game mechanics. The player character’s background, for example, is fixed: you are the bastard son of the recently deceased Emperor Sigurd I and a beautiful woman called Aurora, who was a dragon in disguise. When the old emperor is betrayed and murdered by your more legitimate siblings, you are tasked with defending the kingdom from their squabbles and drives towards expansion.
    Character customization is quite limited to picking one of three dragon types, and the remainder of the role-playing is relegated to making decisions about political and social policies, such as whether or not to legalize doctor-prescribed narcotics, or to start taxing the region’s rich and powerful church. Of course, the player’s actual approach to battles and choosing skills to invest in also allow for a greater sense of connectedness with the character (will you research the best machinery available and command from a distance, or dive in headfirst and start flinging fireballs?) but since going to one extreme or the other is a surefire way to make things extremely difficult for yourself, most players would end up taking a middle-ground approach.

    The AI isn't exactly genius level, but it doesn't have to be in order to meet you in the middle of the map for an all-out slugfest, which is what you'll inevitably be doing. Huge deathballs of units (reminiscent of Total Annihilation) collide amusingly while you assume direct control of your dragon, whose customizable ability bar allows him to act as something of a hero unit. Laying waste to armies as a dragon doesn't quite elicit immediate thrills though, owing mostly to how cumbersome it can be to order your legions about whilst in dragon mode. A heavy reliance on awkward hotkey combinations keeps things from ever feeling truly fluid, but once I got used to it, commanding the many unique and powerful units while swooping about and raining death on my foes proved to be a unique sort of fun. As a stand-alone RTS experience, its focus on going wherever your enemy is and getting bloody with them might have rung a bit hollow, but as one cog in a much bigger, more intricate machine, it works quite well.
    Divinity: Dragon Commander definitely shouldn’t be missed for fans of real-time strategy, excelling at the art of tense and exciting battles where planning and in-depth knowledge of available resources is essential. If you were only really interested in the story and RPG elements then the game will most likely leave you feeling a little dissatisfied, but you can always blow up some zeppelins and then fly away into the sunset to cheer yourself up.
  5. Oct 28, 2013
    Dammit, I wanted to like this game so much more, and I wanted to give it a higher rating, but this is as good as it deserves.

    First of,
    this game has balls. It tries to take so many different genres on: a card-based game, real-time strategy, first person shooter, a Risk-map game. It initially appears to do all of these things good but then the cracks start showing.

    The platform for all of these different elements within this game are there; they're solid at first but, then they never seem to fully materialize. Examples:

    1. You will never, ever use the Dragon mode, where you morph into a dragon and enter a first-person shooter, during the mini-skirmish real-time strategy moments on the game. It wastes time, money, much needed attention, and the dragon dies almost instantly. A cool idea; however, completely useless. The dragon mode should have been used as a global command, i.e., reign down fire on units, and it would have been just a cool and way more effective.

    2. Mini-skirmish games involving the real-time strat moments are just that. Min-skirmishes which recycle the same three maps and same 6 or 7 units over and over in a capture the flag style match. The AI is horrible, even on the hardest setting, and even on a 0% chance to win prediction you easy win as you let the rush your base turrets and then zerg-counter with the cheapest units.

    3. The Risk-map portion of the game is lackluster. The AI will suicide bomb you ever chance it gets, only to die repeatedly, making itself weaker and easier to beat.

    4. The card portion of the game is fun and interesting as far as turning the tide of battle; however, only a handful of card are actually useful and greatly overpowered.

    5. The political portion of the game, such as dealing with the generals wants and needs and/or dealing with different faction leaders is pretty much yes or no. The problems dealt with in the game range from genocide to gay marriage, including a part where one of your generals actually declares themselves, in private to you, as being gay. I can say that I was never bored when listening to these problems and it was a breath of fresh air to see a game handling these issues, but man, your responses to them are watered-down and the outcomes are glossed over.

    These are certainly only a few of the games problems, but with that said, I can say the music and voice-acting is top-quality, the graphics are usually pretty good, the humor is hysterical, the story is generic on purpose and makes fun of itself in the process.

    I really hope that this game is just a first in the series, and that the devs are able to tighten up gameplay on the second round. But as it stands now, this game deserves to have the public take a look at it, if only for possibility of what it could have been.

    I myself beat the game in about 8 hours on the hardest settings, and while I smile the entire time, I gave a sigh when the game was finished, knowing that I'd never go back and play it again. I want to, but not until these problems are addressed.
  6. Aug 20, 2013
    I can't understand people who gave 10 to this game. The game play is a normal RTS with some new ideas players can control the dragon in the battle..), however nothing very special. The graphics are average... for a 2013 PC only game i expect a lot better.
    The campaign is short, not well written and with strange events, for example: at the beginning of the game i had only 2 commanders, they were "hating" my character... then in the first turn i got a neutral territory, i came back to the story menu... suddenly 2 new commanders in addition to the first two are arrived. The old ones now don't hate my character and they said "great battle commander, you're a true warrior"... what battle!?!? I just moved my troops in neutral territory!!!
    This is an unpolished, unfinished, under average game. Not worth 10$. Dunno how they sold it at 40$!
  7. Aug 21, 2013
    I'll preface this with how I plan to end it: It's a con. If you're buying this game for the dragon, or for the promises that Larian originally made, don't. Please don't. Even if you don't trust me, I implore you to wait for a demo so that you can see for yourself.

    This game, to me, was a massive disappointment.

    Early on it was described as a dragon air-combat game with elements of political intrigue. What it is is avery poorly realised traditional RTS (traditional in the sense that it's similar to ancient RTS games like Dune, which just aren't great when compared to modern RTS standards); an unimaginative, watered down, and strategy-challenged take on Risk; some buffs and debuffs optimistically described as a 'card game;' and 'RPG elements' which are the precise equivalent of those simplistic Choose Your Own Adventure books from the '80s.

    Even the most redeeming point, the Choose Your Own Adventure elements, are ruined by the fact that your most important choices are made for you you cannot choose to not have a partner, you cannot choose the gender of your partner, and you have no agency or control over how the game ends (there's one ending, and it's not exactly what you'll have been looking for as the closing moments of your supposedly epic struggle). Infuriatingly, the game even builds up this fellow named The Architect as the big bad, then you never meet him. That would be like removing Sovereign from the end of Mass Effect.

    The RTS element is just nauseatingly phoned in. It's obvious that the so-called RTS section was originally designed as a MOBA, until they ran out of resources to create new unit types and just slapped a clumsy RTS interface over the top of it instead. The clumsy RTS interface doesn't hide that the AI is blobby and follows pre-defined paths (like a MOBA AI would), nor does it hide the problems with the dragon. The dragon feels like it was designed for a MOBA game (versus other hero dragons) and it would have agency and use there, but with the half-hearted switch to RTS the dragon becomes an afterthought rather than a focal element. There's fun to be had in the MOBA it could have been, had they finished it.

    The game was originally painted as having the dragon play an important role combating air fortreses of various sorts, with enemy dragons, and even with your own generals having their own dragon forms. You can see evidence of all I'm talking about in the screenshots and even the concept art, but a bait & switch was pulled by scrapping that. I wish they'd warned me so I could have requested a refund from my pre-purchase. If you were buying this game for the dragon... just don't. It's a con.

    I'd love to have received the game that Larian promised rather than what I got, because certain elements aren't terrible. The plot and the writing up until Act III, where it all goes to rot (demonic corruption a la WoW), and the characters are compelling even if your interactions with them are limited. I can see how Dragon Commander could be a good game, but the truth is is that it's an awful game.

See all 49 User Reviews