8-BIT DEATH PIT

FOUR WARBANDS. ONE PIT. ONE BANNER LEFT STANDING.

If you ever lost a weekend to Footman Frenzy, you already know this game. Four teams ring a pit of fire. Every commander holds one barracks, and that barracks trains troops on its own, forever. No workers. Nothing to mine. No base to lay out. Gold arrives on a timer and from kills, and every decision you make is about the fight itself.

NO ADS. NO IN-APP PURCHASES. NO ACCOUNT. NO INTERNET.

There is nothing to buy, nothing gated behind a login, no daily rewards, no energy timer, no season pass and no analytics watching you play. The game makes zero network requests — it never talks to a server because there is no server. Install it once and it runs in a tunnel, on a plane, or with the SIM pulled out. Everything below is in the download.

COMMAND A HERO, NOT AN ECONOMY

Take one of twelve champions. Each has four abilities, a talent tree and twenty-five levels of growth. Lead from the front, or hang back and let the army do the work.

SWEAR TO A WARBAND

Every barracks opens unsworn, training plain footmen. Your first tier purchase commits you, and the choice is final:

• Ironhold Kingdom — infantry and knights hold the line while riflemen shoot over them

• Bloodtusk Warband — melee top to bottom, and it hits like it

• Sylvan Covenant — ranged the whole way up

• The Pale Legion — a mixed ladder that cripples what it touches

Then spend on whatever wins: barracks tiers for a better troop line, forge upgrades that arm every soldier you own, racial mastery for your warband's own trick, or artifacts from the Bonepicker for your hero.

HOLD THE ARCHVAULT

The vault at the crossroads pays your whole team gold and mana for as long as you hold it, and war relics sit on its four faces. Standing there means standing in the open, which is exactly why the middle is worth fighting over.

SUDDEN DEATH

When the clock runs out, barracks lose their armour and any base with enemies standing on it starts to crumble. Late games end in sieges instead of stalemates. Set it to 8, 10, 15 or 20 minutes, or switch it off and win by force.

FOUR WAYS TO PLAY

• Frenzy — the classic four-team scrap

• Blitz — faster waves, richer economy

• Hero Wars — first team to fifteen hero kills

• Skirmish — hold the Archvault to win, and expect to be done in about eight minutes

SET UP THE MATCH YOU WANT

Four, eight or twelve commanders. Two battlefield sizes. Two map layouts. Three difficulty settings. Five sudden-death clocks. Randomise the lot if you would rather be surprised.

PICK IT UP WHERE YOU LEFT IT

Matches save themselves. Close the app mid-fight, come back later, and the lobby offers to put you straight back into it.

Landscape, built for touch: one thumb on the joystick, one on your abilities.

Not affiliated with, endorsed by or connected to any other game or its publisher.