Digital Crafter, the developer behind Fight of Gods and Fight of Steel, took over two years to make another game after Steel. Instead of a fighting game, they made an auto-shooter, aka a Vampire Survivors clone. Valkyrie Squad: Siege Breakers is my new favorite auto-shooter. I would have done this review yesterday, but I had to keep playing. Now, Army of Ruin was great, for the time it was released two years ago. Time has moved on. Meanwhile Vampire Survivors is busy doing crossovers, and while I loved the Castlevania and Contra ones, I can’t help but feel the core game play is getting kinda stale. Valkyrie Squad refreshes the auto-shooter game play, and while not everything it does is new, it does it all in a great way.
If you’re reading this, you probably know the basics of every auto-shooter, so I won’t spend much time on that. Basically, you run around a stage and the attacks fire themselves. Enemies drop gems which gives xp, which on level up, you get a choice of active attacks and passive skill upgrades. The active and passive skills you pick determine if you can evolve the standard attack into a more powerful variety. There is also coinage which can be used to purchases permanent upgrades. Now, on to the main Valkyrie Squad: Siege Breakers review.
Valkyrie Squad is Waifu Heaven!
Valkyrie Squad has you playing as a squad of three Valkyries, aka cute waifus. Each waifu is a part of a themed team, like punk waifus or SWAT team waifus. However, you can mix and match them to create a custom team. Each waifu is fully voiced. Every waifu comes with their own special main attack, special attack and charged attack. Each waifu can be individually leveled up. You can level up their attacks and 3 different stats, which change with each of them.
On certain maps and difficulty levels in Valkyrie Squad, the waifus appear in sleeping pods and can be rescued. They they’ll help out for a few minutes. If you win the level, you upgrade the waifus you already have, as well as unlock the waifu you do not have. The waifu you don’t have then must be bought with the coins you collect. The waifu’s standard attack gets unlocked even if they aren’t on your team, once you buy them.
The three waifu dynamic plays out in each level in Valkyrie Squad as you can rotate between the three at any time. This will change the charged attack and the special attack. The special attacks are powerful and very different, so you’ll want to pick the best one for any situation. What’s nice here is that, unlike Eden Survivors, you are not locked into a team, as the upgrading is not expensive, so you can quickly get a new waifu up to speed.
The four very intricate and detailed levels.
There are only four levels in Valkyrie Squad. Mechanical, Zombie, Insectoid and Fantasy. Fortunately, they’re all different and well done. They each have their own enemies, stage hazards and rogue waifu boss. And the levels are only fifteen minutes long. After fifteen minutes, the boss appears, fight her and you win. Unfortunately, the end stage bosses are not exactly easy, they’re all different and have some very nasty attacks. Fortunately, there is a dodge move in Valkyrie Squad, which will save your butt. Each stage comes with four difficulty levels, each with their own set of waifus to rescue. The Zombie stage requires you to beat Mechanical difficulty two. Then you must beat Zombie difficulty three to unlock the insectoid stage.
Conclusion
There being only four stages is disappointing, and I have a feeling there won’t be DLC. That said, Valkyrie Squad is going for depth and not breath. Its not here to suck up hundreds of hours, it’ll probably take a lot less than that to see everything. What it does promise and deliver on is one of the most strategic and tactical auto-shooters there is. I’m giving this a Must Play with a ten. Why? Because Valkyrie Squad: Siege Breakers the new queen of auto-shooters. Vampire Survivors can release all the great DLC it wants, the core experience has not really evolved. The characters still lack personality and they cannot be individually upgraded.
Valkyrie Squad is a must purchase for auto-shooter fans. Anything I can do to spread the world about it, I will do. It’s that damn good! By the way, before I go, I should mention it has a mixed rating on Steam. Reading the reviews, I don’t think many of reviewers get this is an auto-shooter, not a bullet hell shooter. Also, they put in very short times before reviewing. I will say Valkyrie Squad will start off slow, but once you start upgrading, things start getting awesome and it earns its score!
Overall: Valkyrie Squad: Siege Breakers is one of the best auto-shooters ever made. Digital Crafter took their time with this, and it shows.
Verdict: Must Play
Score: 10
| Release Date | 9/4/25 |
| Cost | $6.99 |
| Publisher | Digital Crafter |
| ESRB Rating | T |
Update: Unfortunately, I found an issue in the Insectoid world where you can walk through the side walls and off the map. I’ve notified the developer and waiting to hear a response. I’ll hold the rating for now, but eventually if not patched I will downgrade the rating.
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