Last updated on January 4th, 2026 at 12:40 pm
Scythe: Digital Edition – Board Game Review
Scythe: Digital Edition is a Board game from THE KNIGHTS OF UNITY SP Z O O, first launched in 16th September 2020.
It’s rated 9+ and currently has 211+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes Scythe: Digital Edition Stand Out
Scythe: Digital Edition is a mobile version of an awarded strategy board game with multiplayer for 1-5 players (with DLC for up to 7 players!). Divide and rule in an alternate reality in 1920s Europe, filled with mechs. Become the commander of a selected faction and lead it to victory in this 4X tabletop game!
Choose your faction
Each nation in Scythe: Digital Edition provides completely different possibilities. Be the hero of one of the seven factions: Saxony Empire, Crimean Khanate, Rusviet Union, Polania Republic, Nordic Kingdom, Clan Albion or Togawa Shogunate*. For the unique gameplay, pick a speciality: agriculturalist, industrialist, engineer, patriot or mechanic.
Embrace the 4X mechanics
Explore the land surrounding the Factory and be aware of the dangers waiting there. Expand your faction by claiming new territories. Exploit and gather resources to upgrade your buildings. Exterminate opposing enemies or dominate the game economically.
Engage asymmetric gameplay
From the very beginning, players start the game with different resources, a different starting location and a secret objective. It reflects the unpredictability of the board game and encourages experimentation. Move around the board, recruit units and fight your way to the top in a turn-based style!
Play with other players
Fight on your own terms, adjusting the mats to your preferences. Take three levels of AI to fine-tune your strategy, then challenge other players. In Scythe: Digital Edition, you can play with your friends in a hot-seat or try your best in online multiplayer with up to 7 players. Europe is waiting!
*You can buy Clan Albion and Togawa Shogunate in DLC Invaders from Afar via the in-game store as additional factions.
This Board game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, Scythe: Digital Edition is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 3rd December 2025
Recent improvements include:
Hello from The Factory!
The mill has been repaired, the Mechs have been polished.
Patchnote:
Fixed issues with crashes.
Download & Availability
Scythe: Digital Edition is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
Get Scythe: Digital Edition on App Store
Requirements: Requires iPhone 5s / iPad Air / iPad Air (Cellular) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina, Cellular) / iPhone 6 / iPhone 6 Plus / iPad Air 2 / iPad Air 2 (Cellular) / iPad Mini 3 or later.
Compatible with iPhone and iPad devices.
Player Experience Highlights
Community Insight:
Great game but while playing pass and go there is no notification when your turn is ready. There is also no way to start game with friends that arent logged in and online. Very annoying to have to sync up a time to both open the app and get online to start a game.
Hard to see what others are doing, undo button doesnt work, cant see which actions are upgradable, confusing interface, and many other UI issues. Steam version is preferable.
Just sits in a loading screen. Seems others are having the same issue. Id hold off on buying until the creator fixes this issue.
Play through is easy and connectiong to online play is great. Playing with family across the globe.
We have the physical copy of this game, but had never really played it. The rules are a bit daunting at first, especially if you dont have anyone who already plays to show you. This is absolutely the best method to learn the game. At this price its a steal. This game includes a tutorial composed of 11 concise lessons, each detailing an aspect of play. It also includes an offline mode with up to 3 bots of user specified difficulty levels. Scythe is basically Risk and Catan with some light narrative D&D encounter/choice/resolution scenarios. We would call it a post-war game. The world is beautiful and well crafted. No one is the bad guy (you dont even HAVE to attack your opponent to win). You can play how you feel your character/country would play, or just how you feel in the moment. All of this is so very well translated to the digital version. We would be shocked if Knights of Unity werent big fans prior to developing this digital version. If youre curious about Scythe, get it. If you have Scythe and want a quick method to play even without friends, get it. If you want to practice specific board/mat combinations, get it. We have it on the iPad and on our Pixel phone and both are identical and fantastic (albeit iPad is bigger/prettier). Just to clear up a couple things other reviewers mention: – You can turn on painted models by selecting Extras and then Paintshop. – Offline mode DOES work in airplane mode. You have to load the app while connected to the internet, but once its loaded you can leave it on in the background and it will play as normal offline mode in airplane mode. This appears to be a symptom of Apples stupid Game Center, not the Scythe game specifically. Our Pixel doesnt have this issue, it loads from fully closed in airplane mode, no problem. It took all of 5 minutes to figure this out, but – yeah – tank an apps review over it.
We play this game a lot and it works great.
If you like the board game, youll find this version of it really easy to pick up and start playing! Only complaint we have is that since Knights of Unity have taken over, Ive had a hard time connecting to online play, but we hardly used online play before anyways, so not a deal breaker for us.
BUYER BEWARE Sadly we have to update our review. Looks like Knights of Unity are under new management, and dont care whatsoever about their products anymore. It makes their website look like quite a joke – transparency and dependability?? The game simply wont even load to the main menu, and appears this has been the case for MONTHS now. This is disgusting, even by EA standards. No support, no contact – we wont be buying another game made by this gross company. Love this game, and we think the LoU guys did a fine job with this implementation! Id love for some more UX enhancements that make it a little easier to access game information, particularly modals or slide outs that can be toggled, or perhaps a small icon-based hud when an entity or icon is tapped. Most importantly, Im hoping we can get Invaders from Afar for this platform – being able to practice Albion or Togawa on the go would be incredibly helpful for our game.
We originally gave this game a one star because it couldnt even load up the menu, but it turns out that you just have to make sure that youre connected to your games center with an account with the same email as the one in the App Store. Than you have to uninstall the game and then reinstall it. If you hear music while its loading, it should be working.
Have loved the board game and now thrilled to play on our phone as well. A couple of suggestion Id love to see implemented. -The app seems more suited for play and stay games. We play a mostly play and go games. If we could leave a play and go game invite open while we left the app, we would end up playing more games. Its hard to find matches when we have to keep the app open and live. -On the note of play and go games, it seems there are no push notifications for when it is your turn. This would make the play and go games much more playable. -For play and stay games we recognize the need to avoid undo moves. For play and go games with much more time, having undo enabled would be very nice. -we do appreciate the graphics(the isometric view like a live over the table board). There are times it can make it hard to see the simple details. Adding a toggle on the settings to keep the general simple detailing and be able to zoom in just top down view would be handy (just like when the screen is fully zoomed out, but being able to zoom in on that view). All in all, love the game and this is enabling us to keep playing it on the daily, so thank you for all your work, much appreciated.
We played this app countless times and had some great games. But, over the past couple of months the game has become inoperable as we can never get past the loading screen. The app starts up, begins loading in and then never stops loading. The game never starts. Such a shame. We want our money back now that the app doesnt even work. UPDATE: Thank you for the instructions. It worked and now Im back on Scythe Digital Edition! We have changed our rating to four star.
It seems like many of the bugs have been works out. The one thing keeping us from giving 5 starts is that the app seems to hang in offline startup (when Im in airplane mode on a flight). It seems like IOSs Game Center is what hangs it up. Every time we start the app it connects to Game Center. But when we start it and Im off Wi-Fi and cellular the app hangs on the startup screen and the Game Center prompt doesnt come up. Its a bummer because we mostly cant play it on flights (which is half of why we downloaded it) unless we start the app before takeoff, and even then, if we close it for too long it will force us to go through the start up screen again. Any ideas how to fix this.
A good adaptation of a great game.
The biggest complaint we have is that to start an online game with friends everyone has to be online to join a game. You cannot send invites to offline friends. This makes it a real pain to even start a game. The second worst part is that there are no notifications. So nothing will tell you if it is your turn or if you need to take an action. This completely makes the app worthless to us. The implementation of the actual game is pretty good and the tutorials are really helpful, but there is a severe lack of quick tips on what the actions do mid game. This wouldnt be so bad if the undo features were more robust. There are some moves you can undo, but it really needs to go further.
Really looked forward to playing on a recent flight but. Its has to be online so we couldnt.
Just spins on loading for hours, deleted and reinstalled, still the same. Waste of money, will be requesting a refund.
IOS 16.6 on a iPhone 13 Pro game hasnt loaded in days (but app is great when it works).
The game itself is awesome, we love it. The issue is with playing other people. Occasionally the game will just freeze randomly causing you to restart the app. Sometimes you can rejoin the game, but sometimes it doesnt give you that option. Also, the moves can be finicky. Ive had games where it glitched out and didnt give us any options other than end turn. It can be pretty frustrating. Im not sure how active the development team is, but we hope theyre working on fixing these issues. Still, as we said, Scythe is one of the best board games Ive ever played and overall, this is a very good version of it.
As of Dec 2022, this app does not work on iOS 15.7, running on an iPhone XR. Never gets past loading screen.
We were really excited to try the digital edition for iOS, but unfortunately this version is completely broken. The app wont get past the initial loading screen so theres no way to play it at all. We tried it on both our iPhone and iPad to no avail. The PC version works great! Hopefully they fix this version soon. Requested a refund for the time being but will happily update our review and purchase again when its fixed. Update: they just released a new update, but the game is still broken. Same problem, cant get past loading screen.
Fantastic game, great app, but its still missing the Wind Gambit and Rise of Fenris expansions, and it has been out for years at this point.
The latest update makes the game freeze during almost every match. IPad 6th gen iOS 16.1.1. Please fix.
Just sits there on infinite loading. Deleted the apo.
Totally lame that it doesnt get past the loading screen when on airplane mode! We specifically bought this for a cross country flight.
We have followed the steps to migrate to knights of unity from asmodee.net. NOT WORKING. We JUST WANT TO PLAY SCYTHE ONLINE. PLEASE SEND HELP.
Turns out our issue was not being signed into Apple GameCenter. Once we did that we were able to launch the game and play online. App works great now.
We bought this app to use as we travel a lot, and hope to get on the plane. But the quote off-line mode requires you to have a Internet connection so it is almost always unusable on a plane. This is why we rated it 4 stars. Game is good, mechanics are solid. Fun game overall.
Since Dec 2022, game hangs up saying loading. Deleting and iOS updates dont help. 1/27/23: logging into Apple Gamecenter solves the problem. Wish we didnt have too but lots of Apps use it.
Great game, but Airplane mode/playing when not connected to the internet is not allowed, even though you can play solo against the CPU normally. Major drawback for those looking to pass the time on flights.
Great game and the app plays well. Our one complaint is that you cannot play an offline game, unless you are online. Oh the irony. We work for an aerial survey company and spend some long boring days up in the air. Was hoping to fill some of that time with some scythe, but instead we get a forever loading screen, even with the ipad in airplane mode. Thus, unfortunately for us, the app has felt largely like a waste of money, because we cannot use it in the one place we wanted to use it most. Please remove the online requirement for offline games. Its ridiculous.
Bought this as a travel ipad game,and it works greatwhen you have an internet connection. When trying to play on an airplane, we were not able to get past the loading screen and just watched the circle spin for 5 minutes. So, buyer beware; if you are online you can play offline, but if you do not have an internet connection you cannot play at all.
Bought the game to play on an iPad during trips. Game never loads if not connected to the internet and defeats. Must be connected online for the app to load and play despite having a single player ability. Online connectivity not stated as a requirement.
We really like Scythe and the digital version is great, when we can clear the loading screen. For the past week we can't clear that screen and nothing works to fix it. Please help so we can play it again.
Scythe is a great game, but this is a awful conversion. Multiple times, this app has ignored our faction and mech abilities, in addition to the very rules of the game. We regret buying this, so to anyone who reads this, dont buy it. This is a great idea largely wasted.
You have to be connected to the internet for the game to load to the main screen. Though there is an Offline game mode, you cant access it unless you are online. Its nonsensical.
Paid but app wont get past loading screen – after multiple restarts and uninstalls.
We just bought this game and it constantly says loading, even after waiting for a long time, never opened.
The app gets stuck on the loading page. Complete waste of $8 – Knights of Union is just stealing peoples money for a completely non-functional app.
Last update 4 weeks ago. Just bought this. We have internet connection. Just sits there. Wont load. Deleted then downloaded again to no avail. So. Can we get our money back.
If it doesnt work we cant rate it any higher. Was working previously, now it doesnt. Deleting and reloading didnt help.
Got stuck at loading page at initial boot for 30+ minutes. We couldnt play even one time.
We love this game but we cant seem to figure out how to increase the bot difficulty. Easy is too easy. Any advice app designers? Im not sure where to look.
This is a great app for a great game. The developers need to make it a little easier to look at your competitors player mats. It is a big deal when you ate playing the board game. We are not sure there is a way on the app or at least we have not figured it out Hopefully this is something they will develop soon it would be a six-star gave if they did.., pun was fully intended.
- Sometimes Togawa and Albion, after moving the hero, do not have the opportunity to set a trap. 2. Sometimes goals don't work. 3. The function of turning off tracking the actions of the enemy is very necessary. This makes it very difficult to think and plan your move when you are forced to watch the actions and adventure cards of opponents in full screen. Please make the function to disable the ability to monitor the actions of opponents, as it was implemented in the Steam version.
Id love the game more if there was SOUND when playing on our iPad. Sound works perfectly on our iPhone though.
The game is good adaptation waiting till you are deep into a game to force account creation is scummy.
The fact that you have to have all of the friends you want to play an ASYNCHRONOUS game with online at the same time to setup the game is downright unforgivable. It should be a very simple change to allow you to invite friends from a friends list without then being online. The logistics of getting all the friends you want to play a game with on at the same time when its async is a huge unnecessary hassle. As well made as this app is, that is such a glaring issue that we cant help but to bring our review down to 2 stars. What good is a great app if you cant even easily play it with your friends.
We recently got into the Scythe board game and was very excited to try the digital version so that we could play more often. However after playing around 10 games of this version there are some huge issues and we dont think we will be playing anymore. First, the sound has never worked for us. Ive restarted the app multiple times and made sure the option is on -still no sound. Not a huge deal but we feel this is a bug they need to fix. Next, we know the rules say everybody gets a random faction/mat combination, but if Im playing bots offline we should be able to pick what combo we want. On top of this, it picks Crimea for us every single time!!!! Lastly, the AI for the bots is garbage. We have beat the hardest difficulty bots ever single time we try. Its not even challenging or fun and Im not even that good at the game. To conclude, dont buy this if you want to choose your own faction/mat, want a decent challenge, dont want to get stuck playing the same faction over and over again, and play without sound. This was very disappointing for us and Im not expecting it to improve.
We want to report a bug, but there seems to be no app support. We captured a video of the issue. Mech is unable to drop resources after moving one space with workers. 1. Pick up workers + 3 metal 2. Move one space 3. Drop 3 metal 4. Move another space The metal continues moving with the mech despite dropping them.
Im not sure exactly what update did this, but the iPad version is impossible to play online for us now. It sits at authenticating when we go to online or to login settings. Just hangs. Ive uninstalled, restarted, reinstalled. Nothin. Im on iOS 15.5. Too bad for now.
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 2.1.10
- Size: 420.73 MB
- iOS: 15.0 or later
- Languages: AR, NL, EN, FR, DE, IT, JA, KO, PL, RU, ZH, ES, ZH, TR
- Content Advisory: Infrequent/Mild Cartoon or Fantasy Violence
- Developer: THE KNIGHTS OF UNITY SP Z O O
Last updated: 3rd December 2025 | Genre: Board | Developer: THE KNIGHTS OF UNITY SP Z O O