Frontier Command

Frontier Command drops you on a single contested pass and asks you to turn it into a fortress. You gather resources, place walls and towers, and manage a small squad of defenders while attacks come from two directions. It's real-time but pauses are generous, so it never feels panicked unless you let it.

The clever bit is terrain. Choke points, high ground, and a river you can dam all change how fights play out, so two players can solve the same map in totally different ways. I lost a few runs purely because I ignored the hill to my left.

It leans hard into trial and error, which some will find repetitive. For me the puzzle of optimising each defence was the draw. A solid strategy game that respects the small screen.

What we liked

• Terrain genuinely shapes your tactics
• Generous pacing that avoids screen-tapping chaos
• Lots of valid ways to solve a map