Games like Jagged Alliance 2, and which parts of it they keep

Jagged Alliance 2 is hard to replace because of how its parts fit together, not because of any single part. Most games that get compared to it have one of them. Very few have more than two. The parts are these:

Each game below is judged by which of those it keeps. None is a full replacement, and this page says so each time.

It is the closest, and it is the first place to look. Jagged Alliance 3 was made by Haemimont Games and published by THQ Nordic, on PC in July 2023 and on consoles that November. Its strategic layer is nearly a copy of the 1999 design: a grid of sectors, squads moved in pausable real time, diamond mines whose income depends on how much the nearest town likes you, and militia you train to hold ground. Combat is turn-based with body-part targeting, there are 40 mercenaries to hire, and there is co-op, which the original lacked.

The honest summary is a good game that is a smaller Jagged Alliance 2. It averages 81 on Metacritic, and one review called its strategic layer simpler than the original's. Another detailed review found that enemies rarely interrupt the player, which removes much of the tension interrupts gave the old game, and that money stops mattering once two mines are held. Reviewers split on the writing: one called the voice work consistently good, another told readers to play with the dialogue muted.

If you want the 1999 structure with modern production, start here. If you want the 1999 game's pressure, keep reading.

The original Jagged Alliance (1995, Madlab Software, published by Sir-Tech) is the same idea in a rougher form: mercenaries from the Association of International Mercenaries, a grid map of the island of Metavira, turns once the shooting starts. Jagged Alliance: Deadly Games (Sir-Tech, 1996) is a standalone follow-up that drops the strategic map for linked missions with turn limits, network play and a campaign editor. It keeps the combat and loses the country.

After that the licence passed between owners. Sir-Tech Canada, which made Jagged Alliance 2, licensed the series to Strategy First in 2002 and closed in late 2003. In 2010 Strategy First passed the series to the German publisher bitComposer. Under bitComposer came Jagged Alliance: Back in Action (Coreplay, 2012, with the Crossfire expansion the same year) and Jagged Alliance: Flashback (Full Control, 2014, funded on Kickstarter). Beside them was the free-to-play Jagged Alliance Online (Cliffhanger Productions and gamigo, 2012).

bitComposer filed for insolvency in December 2014, and on 5 August 2015 Nordic Games, later renamed THQ Nordic, announced that it had bought the series. Its subsidiary HandyGames published Jagged Alliance: Rage! (Cliffhanger Productions, December 2018), a smaller game with survival elements. Back in Action scored 62 on Metacritic, Flashback 52 and Rage! 59 on PC. Back in Action is the one worth knowing, as an attempt to put real time with pause on this formula, though reviewers criticised its AI. None of the four is a reason to skip Jagged Alliance 2 or 3.

Most people who still play Jagged Alliance 2 play it with 1.13, a community overhaul that adds hundreds of new features, weapons and options and moves nearly all game data into editable files. It installs over a copy of the original, and its development moved to GitHub in 2022 and continues.

You need a copy of the game and nothing else. The Steam edition, Jagged Alliance 2 Gold, is the 1.12 build and includes the Unfinished Business expansion. The GOG edition, Jagged Alliance 2, is the other copy the 1.13 project names. Copy the game folder out of Steam's own directory and keep it out of Program Files, where Windows permissions are known to interfere. Then unpack the all-in-one 1.13 release for your language into that folder and run the new executable.

The campaign mods sit on top of 1.13. Urban Chaos is a full campaign in a new country with a new story. Arulco Vacations changes maps, factions and items. Arulco Revisited is another mod built on 1.13. Wildfire (i-Deal Games, 2004) is a standalone expansion on Steam with 230 redesigned sectors, eight new mercenaries and tougher enemy AI, and a community-maintained version of it runs on 1.13.

The alternative is JA2 Stracciatella, an open-source rebuild of the engine for Windows, Linux, macOS and Android that stays close to the unmodified game. It also needs a clean copy of the original, and it will not work with a copy that has 1.13 installed. You choose one or the other.

7.62 High Calibre (Apeiron, published by Fulqrum Publishing, 2007 on its Steam page) is the sequel to Apeiron's Brigade E5: New Jagged Union (2005), which the Western press received badly, at 41 on Metacritic. 7.62 is the better game. You hire from more than 30 mercenaries and fight in Smart Pause Mode, which blends real time with turn-based options. Most players run it with the Blue Sun mod, which can be switched on from the game's Steam properties and supplies a working English translation, new quests and many new weapons. It keeps the mercenaries and some of the combat. It does not give you a country to conquer.

Battle Brothers (Overhype Studios, 2017) keeps the company and not the country. You run a mercenary band across a procedurally generated world, taking contracts and managing money. Recruits are generated with backgrounds and traits, injuries last, and death is permanent. It is the strongest of the mercenary-company games here, and it has no named cast and no militia. Wartales (Shiro Games, full release April 2023) is similar, with real-time exploration and turn-based fights.

Two current games draw the comparison. Menace (Overhype Studios and Hooded Horse, in early access from February 2026) gives you a mobile headquarters, a choice of distress calls and faction relations, and named squad leaders who can die. Warhounds (Everplay DMCC and Brightika, on PC since August 2026) names Jagged Alliance as an influence and is built around missions of 25 to 40 minutes and a headquarters where you recruit and equip. Neither has the country.

Silent Storm (Nival, 2003) is turn-based squad combat with fully destructible environments, so you can fire through walls. Its expansion, Sentinels, followed in 2004. It is about the fight, not the campaign.

Phoenix Point (Snapshot Games, December 2019, led by Julian Gollop, who designed the original X-COM) is the nearest thing to limb targeting. You zoom in and aim at body parts, and a damaged arm cannot fire its weapon. Neither it nor Xenonauts (Goldhawk Interactive, 2014) has hired people or a conquered country.

This is the part nobody else has copied. Jagged Alliance 2's register is a dry action film: mercenaries who comment aloud in the field and a roster written with a straight face. Jagged Alliance 3 aims at it directly, and reviewers split on whether it landed. The older games and the mods keep it by being the original.

Battle Brothers is the nearest in effect and not in style. Its recruits are generated and not written, and still the backgrounds, traits and injuries make a few of them matter. If tone is what you want, the answer is Jagged Alliance 2 itself.

RAD Tactics is a squad tactics game for Windows, made in Unity and in development. It is real time with pause, set in a post-apocalyptic world with zombie and faction combat. On the combat side that puts it nearer to Back in Action, 7.62, Fallout Tactics and Door Kickers 2, which all let the player stop the clock, than to Jagged Alliance 2's turns. Door Kickers 2 (KillHouse Games, early access November 2020, full release February 2025) has you plan each trooper's route and then watch it run in real time. It is the tactical layer in a different key, without the mercenary layer.

RAD Tactics is not a replacement for the game this page is about, and we have not tried to make one.