The Banner Saga 3 closes a trilogy that began with The Banner Saga in 2014 and continued with The Banner Saga 2 in 2016. Stoic developed it, Versus Evil published it, and 2018 brought it to PlayStation 4, PC, Mac, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Android and iOS. It is a tactical role-playing game with turn-based combat, played from an isometric, bird’s-eye view, built for a single player.
The darkness is not a metaphor in this one. It takes over, and it takes everything the first two games taught you to count on.
Trailer, via The Banner Saga.
Stoic’s hand-painted ending
The Banner Saga 3 is the final dramatic chapter in the Viking RPG series, and the summary is blunt about the stakes: as the world continues to crumble, who can you trust, how will you protect your allies, and what choices will you make as the Darkness draws near?
The trilogy has won more than 20 awards and drawn 4 BAFTA nominations. That record buys Stoic room to end things on its own terms, and it spends that room on the darkness rather than on a victory lap.
The finale is hand-painted, and the source is right to call it beautiful. The art carries the same weight it did in 2014 and 2016, which matters here because the story is about a world going out.
Dredge heroes and the battle waves system
Two additions do the heavy lifting. First, new playable characters join the party, including dredge heroes — the enemy you spent two games fighting is now standing in your ranks.
Second, combat gets a battle waves system, set against a myriad of new enemies. The valka spear and heroic titles give players more room to customize a playstyle.
That is the whole pitch, and it is enough. The Banner Saga 3 does not reinvent the turn-based combat Stoic has run since 2014. It deepens it, then aims it at a longer fight.
The dredge heroes are the sharper idea. A trilogy about trust that hands you the other side of the war as a party member is using its own history as a mechanic.
Carrying your choices into the dark
The Banner Saga 3 reads your save. Choices carried over from The Banner Saga 1 and The Banner Saga 2 lead to different climatic endings in this final chapter.
That is the promise the trilogy has been making for four years, and this is where it gets paid. No hero is safe, which is the line the finale has to earn rather than announce.
Here is the running order for anyone arriving late. The trilogy rewards a full pass, and the carry-over system punishes anyone who skips ahead.
| Order | Game | Year |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Banner Saga | 2014 |
| 2 | The Banner Saga 2 | 2016 |
| 3 | The Banner Saga 3 | 2018 |
The platforms matter less than the save file. The Banner Saga 3 shipped on PlayStation 4, Android, PC, iOS, Mac, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch, so nearly anyone can finish the story. What you cannot do is start here and get the ending the game is built around.
What the finale gets right
Ranked by what actually decides whether The Banner Saga 3 works:
- The carried-over choices, because the endings depend on them and nothing else in the game does this job.
- The dredge heroes, because they turn the trilogy’s central question about trust into something you field in battle.
- The battle waves system, because it gives the turn-based combat a reason to run longer than it did in 2016.
- The valka spear and heroic titles, because customization is welcome without being the point.
- The hand-painted art, because it holds the tone when the writing leans on the darkness.
The order is not close. The first item is the game. Everything below it is support.
A trilogy that ends on its own terms
The published critical score sits at 8.7 out of 10 across a nine-outlet aggregate. That number is fair, and it is fair for a specific reason: The Banner Saga 3 is a finale, not an entry point, and it is judged as one.
The weaknesses are structural rather than mechanical. A game that carries two saves forward cannot fully satisfy a player who arrives without them, and the battle waves system is an extension of combat Stoic already built, not a new one. Neither is a flaw in what the game set out to do.
What matters is the ending. The Banner Saga 3 makes the darkness a force that affects everything you have come to know across two previous games, then asks who you trust and what you protect. That is a real conclusion to a story that started in 2014, and Stoic does not soften it.
The 20-plus awards and 4 BAFTA nominations were earned by the trilogy as a whole. The Banner Saga 3 is the part that has to close the account, and it does.
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