Trench Defender

Trench Defender is one of those indie FPS games that knows exactly what it is: a raw, scrappy, wave based shooter about a conscripted Slavic soldier trying to survive twelve days of relentless enemy attacks without ending up in a body bag. You're not a hero. You're not special forces. You're just a guy in a trench with a rifle, a dwindling supply of ammo, and a faint hope that maybe just maybe, you'll make it home instead of being shipped back in a bag.

The premise is brutally simple. You defend your trench against hordes of enemy soldiers and vehicles across 12 days of successive attacks, each day bringing more enemies and new threats. There are 20 different enemy types infantry and vehicles alike, and 18 different weapons for you to use, plus trench upgrades that include two heavy weapons. Every stage you survive, you get new weapons and the chance to purchase upgrades for your trench. The arsenal ranges from modern military hardware to stuff that's seen better decades, and you never quite know what you're going to get.

What makes it stand out is the co op multiplayer. You can play solo, but honestly, that can get a little lonesome. Bring a friend, though, and the whole thing transforms. You defend the trench together, split the loot, and commiserate when you both get stuck with a worthless shotgun. It supports both LAN and online play through a peer to peer connection, though be warned, hosting an online game requires port forwarding, and if you're behind a CGNAT, you'll need something like Hamachi to make it work.

The game doesn't hold your hand. It's hard. One reviewer with 30 hours logged asked, "Is it supposed to be this hard or am I just that bad??" and loved it anyway. Another praised the concept but noted that the inability to aim down sights and the wide angular mouse movement can make precision shooting frustrating. It's rough around the edges, but for the price, it's worth taking a whack at. The developer, Chim Ruoi Games, is a small studio, and you can feel that scrappy, one person vision energy in every wave.

The presentation is functional rather than flashy. The level selection and intro/outro artwork is AI generated with minor manual touch ups, which the developer discloses openly on the Steam page. The game includes scenes of war like violence explosions, blood spurts when bullets hit bodies, dead soldiers, so it doesn't shy away from the grim reality of its setting. It runs on almost anything: minimum specs ask for just an Intel i5, 8 GB RAM, and Intel Iris Xe graphics, with only 300 MB of storage needed.

Who's it for?

If you like wave based shooters that are actually challenging and don't waste your time with filler, this is for you. If you've got a friend who enjoys co op survival games and you want something cheap to sink a weekend into, the multiplayer is genuinely fun. It's also for players who appreciate scrappy indie FPS games that swing for the fences even when they don't have a AAA budget. And if you just want a short, brutal, no nonsense shooter about holding a trench against impossible odds, this one's got you covered. Early reviewers are giving it 100% positive reviews, and one player logged 140 hours in coop.

If the game has captured your interest in a serious way, I wish you success in winning.