Acceptable Losses is a phase-based First World War command and management game. You are the officer behind the line, not the hero: you assign squads to patrols, trench repairs, wiring parties and assaults by day, and face incident reports, medical updates and intelligence briefings by night, balancing morale, fatigue, cohesion and paperwork across a twenty-day campaign. Perform well enough and you may be ordered Over the Top, where success leads to a second act holding captured ground. It is developed and published by Zann Archive.

Chart credential: #45 on the Steam 250 best games of the week chart as a new entry, with a score of 6.96 from 29 reviews. Released 8 September 2026.

Key features

Paperwork is the combat system

The night phase — incident reports, medical updates, intelligence briefings — is where the game is actually played. Putting the administrative layer in the foreground is what makes the subject land: you never fire a weapon, so the cost of an order arrives as a document rather than as a death animation, and that is a far harder thing to click past.

Morale, fatigue and cohesion pull against each other by design

Four competing meters with a fixed twenty-day clock means there is no configuration that satisfies all of them. Resting a squad costs you the trench repair; pushing a patrol costs cohesion later. The absence of a dominant strategy is the point — the title is the thesis.

The second act is a reward that is also a punishment

Performing well earns Over the Top, and success there leads to holding captured ground. Structuring the campaign so that competence buys you a harder job rather than an ending is unusual in a short strategy game, and it is what stops the twenty days reading as a score attack.

Where to find it

Available on Steam for $5.59. Windows PC, mouse-only option, colour alternatives, playable without timed input. English only.