Warhounds Beginner Guide - How Long to Beat and Where to Start

Warhounds is a turn-based tactical squad game from The First Studios, published by Brightika and released on Steam on Aug 11, 2026 at $27.99 in the US. The store listing is the only official description of it, and it answers the length question directly: one mission runs 25 to 40 minutes, while no total campaign length is published at all.

What the listing actually says the game is

The store text calls Warhounds a turn-based tactical and strategy game about a mercenary squad, with an old-school action movie vibe, and names XCOM and Jagged Alliance as its inspirations. You command a team of operators in an alternate-future Africa beyond 2035 and decide the war contract by contract.

What the page does not describe is a story structure: there is no chapter list, no mission count and no named campaign map. Buyers get a systems description rather than a plot summary, which is why this guide sticks to the published systems.

How long to beat, in numbers

The one duration the listing commits to is the mission length. Everything longer than that is unpublished, so the honest answer to how long to beat the campaign is that no official figure exists yet.

Question	What the store page says
Single mission length	25 to 40 minutes
Campaign length	not published
Difficulty options	published, from a brutal tactical hell to a light, relaxing run
Save system	Save Anytime is tagged on the listing
Pause and pace	playable at your own pace and playable without timed input are both tagged

That table is the whole published answer on time. If a completion time matters to you, treat the mission figure as the only number that will not change once you are inside the game.

The five classes and how a squad is built

Squad building is the second layer the store page describes, and it is short enough to list in full. Classes and equipment are the published parts; the numbers behind them are not.

• Assault, Specialist, Sniper, Machine Gunner and Grenadier are the five listed classes.
• Fighters are hired rather than drafted, and the listing describes them as mercenaries with personality.
• Loadouts are described as mission-focused, and the page promises no busywork in equipping a squad.
• Between missions you recruit, upgrade and buy equipment; gear is picked per job.
• Wounded operatives are treated and extracted, and key operatives can be protected.

There is no published list of weapons, armour or skill trees, so a first session is spent learning the classes from the inside rather than from a spreadsheet.

The base loop between contracts

Between missions the game switches to management. The store text lists recruits, upgrades, equipment purchases, logistics, finances, medical supplies and downtime as the things the base handles, along with allied factions, relationships, intel and covert operations.

That is a real second game attached to the tactical one, and the listing is explicit that decisions there feed back into what you can take into combat: your choices determine access to missions, gear and allies.

What the numbers do not cover

Two figures worth knowing before you start are not in this guide because they are not official: there is no published number of missions, and no published number of playable characters. The other end of the scale is published and looks generous, with 37 achievements, 12 store screenshots and three trailers on the page.

The combat detail sits on How It Plays, the platform and controller facts are on Availability, and the launch record is on Launch & Demo.