Victory Banner Steam Demo Review
Played 7 Nov 2026 · 1h 30min
Verdict: Play
I got so carried away firing the tank that I forgot I was meant to be commanding the rest of the battlefield.
I got so carried away firing the tank that I forgot I was meant to be commanding the rest of the battlefield. Victory Banner let me do both. Remembering to do both was my problem. Victory Banner is a World War II real-time strategy game from Peresvet, published by HeroCraft PC, where you can leave the overhead view and take direct control of individual soldiers and vehicles. That switch was what made me want to play it. I tried the scenario and an Assault battle, lost a lot of tanks, and still wanted to keep pushing. **Play.** There's a lot to learn, and the enemy behaviour needs work, but I got sucked in straight away. If moving troops around a battlefield and then taking over the tank yourself sounds like your sort of evening, give it a go. If you want to concentrate on shooting without managing the rest of the battle, this probably isn't the one. You're still responsible for everyone else.
It gets a Play from me because of that switch between the battlefield view and getting involved myself. There's enough here that I would put the time into learning it properly. The enemy behaviour needs improving, and so does my ability to leave the tank alone for five minutes.
Pros
- Switching between commanding units and controlling one directly is the main draw, and it kept pulling me back into the fight.
- The tank turret takes time to catch up with where you're aiming. I liked having to account for that while switching between the machine gun and armour-piercing rounds.
- There's plenty to get into: different infantry, medics, tanks, defensive building and reinforcements. I barely scratched some of it in this session.
Cons
- A lot of controls and systems arrive at once. I kept going back to the controls while the battle carried on without me.
- Enemy soldiers sometimes failed to take cover or react sensibly, including a crew member trying to repair while I was still shooting.
- Getting the rest of my troops moving where I wanted felt harder than it should.
Why did I pick this one up?
The direct control was the thing. I like war shooters, so the idea of switching from an RTS battlefield into a third-person Shooter view sounded interesting. I started with the scenario because I thought that would be the better way to learn.
There was quite a lot of learning. Early on I managed to get someone out of a tank before I worked out how to control it properly. I paused, checked the controls, found the direct-control button and got back to it.
How do the tanks feel?
The turret doesn't instantly point wherever you look. I had to pay attention to where the gun was actually pointing and wait for it to catch up before firing. I liked having to account for that, although I kept forgetting about it once the Action started.
I switched between the machine gun for infantry and armour-piercing rounds for tanks. Damage messages gave me things to react to: damaged turrets, damaged engines, shots that didn't penetrate. I also took control of an anti-tank rifleman and finished off a tank, then discovered the next one wasn't going down nearly as easily.
About twenty minutes in I restarted the scenario. I'd been winning my little fight while the other flank got flattened. I needed to spend more time controlling the whole battlefield.
What happens when you remember the strategy?
Most of my time went into checking which position needed help, bringing in troops, then taking control of a unit to help them push through. After that I'd pull back to the overhead view, see what had gone wrong elsewhere and move people across. In the scenario I was trying to hold the line and take positions back; in Assault I was pushing from point to point.
I started paying more attention to the Strategy side: placing trenches, sandbags and anti-tank obstacles, bringing in reinforcements and moving troops across to the side that needed them. There are enough different units that I wanted more time to learn what each was good for.
After finishing the scenario I tried an Assault battle. Capturing points gave me another reason to keep moving, and some of the opposition punished my tanks much harder. I got through that too. It took longer than I expected, but I was still enjoying it at the end.
What needs work?
Enemy behaviour was the most obvious weakness. I watched enemies fail to take cover and kept asking why they weren't reacting to the tank sat right behind them. I'm a tank. I'm not sneaky.
That needs work, but it didn't make the whole demo a walkover. In Assault I was still losing tanks and having to bring up support to push onto the next point. Those fights kept me interested despite the moments when the enemy did something daft. The direct control was fun enough that I wanted to keep going.
Commanding my own troops also needed to feel easier. Sometimes I thought they weren't doing anything, and I wanted a general order or a way to have them follow my push. There may already have been a command I hadn't learned. By the end I knew I'd need a lot more time with the controls.
I also would have preferred less information about enemy health when directly aiming at them. That's just me wanting it more realistic. It didn't spoil anything.
How does it look and run?
It looked and sounded good throughout. You can pull right back to a high bird's-eye view or get down into third person, and it looks really good at both ends. They've made good choices about how much detail to show at each distance. That matters in a game where you're constantly moving between looking over the whole battlefield and controlling one unit.
I didn't notice any performance issues or bugs during my session.
What do you get in the demo?
I played the available scenario and an Assault battle, finishing both in a session of roughly 90 minutes of play. That included learning the controls and restarting the scenario, so don't take it as a fixed demo length. There was still plenty I hadn't properly learned about the units and building.
I haven't confirmed whether demo progress carries into the release version, or how much of the eventual game this represents.
The demo is free to download from the [main Steam page](https://store.steampowered.com/app/3581910/). As of 7 November 2026, the game is listed as Coming soon, with no price displayed. There's no firm launch date to give you yet.
Controller and Steam Deck testing have not been confirmed for this session.
Game Info
- Full release
- TBC
- Platform
- PC (Steam)
- Multiplayer
- No
- Controller
- No
- Playtime
- 1h 30min
Watch the video review: YouTube
Watch the complete live play on YouTube
Tags: Action, Shooter, Strategy
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