Last updated on December 14th, 2025 at 07:18 am
Hex of Steel – Strategy Game Review
Hex of Steel is a Strategy game from Valentin Lievre, first launched in 21st September 2020.
It’s rated 4+ and currently has 117+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes Hex of Steel Stand Out
▶ IMPORTANT: Hex of Steel is a graphically intensive game. For the best experience, especially in the largest scenarios, we recommend using a device with a strong GPU/CPU. Devices from 2017 onward, like the iPhone X, should handle these scenarios smoothly. However, all devices can access the extensive campaign mode and engage in thrilling multiplayer battles. ◀
▶ Command the War. Forge History ◀
Immerse yourself in Hex of Steel, a fresh and innovative WWII wargame that spans all major fronts. Command your forces across Europe, Africa, and the Pacific in a game that marries deep strategic gameplay with cutting-edge mechanics.
▶ Born from Passion ◀
What started as a Kickstarter dream with just €53 has evolved into a deeply engaging strategy game, a testament to the determination and passion of its creator. Hex of Steel is more than just another war game—it's a labor of love crafted with the input of a dedicated community.
▶ Why Hex of Steel Stands Out ◀
• Constant Evolution: Over 400 updates and counting. Hex of Steel is continuously refined and improved, ensuring a fresh and balanced experience with every playthrough.
• Dynamic AI: Engage with an AI that reacts to your every move, providing a challenging and fair experience without resorting to cheats.
• Expansive Scenarios: Command your units across massive, meticulously crafted maps that cover Europe, North Africa, the Pacific, and beyond.
• Endless Customization: Tailor your experience with over 50 policies and doctrines, from military tactics to occupation strategies. Toggle optional settings like zone of control, realistic supplies, and fog of war to suit your style.
• Epic Campaigns: Lead your core units through branching, dynamic campaigns that allow you to rewrite military history.
• Cross-Platform Play: Seamlessly battle friends across PC and mobile platforms with cross-platform multiplayer.
• Limitless Creativity: Design your own scenarios, units, and maps using a suite of editors, or dive into infinite replayability with the random scenario generator.
• Strategic Depth: Employ diplomacy, forge alliances, declare wars, and negotiate truces. Your strategic choices will shape the course of the game.
• Vast Replayability: With 45 playable nations—from Germany to Mongolia to Iraq—Hex of Steel offers an unprecedented variety of strategies and challenges.
• Immersive Environment: Experience dynamic weather and seasonal transitions, complete with stunning visual and sound effects that bring the battlefield to life.
• No Hidden Costs: Enjoy the full game with no in-app purchases or paid content—what you see is what you get.
▶ Join a Thriving Community ◀
With an active and growing Discord community of 1600+ members, you'll find plenty of support, tips, and camaraderie as you dive into the rich world of Hex of Steel.
Whether you're a seasoned strategist or new to the genre, Hex of Steel offers a deeply immersive and customizable wargaming experience that will challenge your tactical prowess.
The battlefield awaits—are you ready to command?
This Strategy game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, Hex of Steel is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 8th December 2025
Recent improvements include:
ADDED
• Capitulation event for the USSR on the Europe scenarios when capturing: Moscow, Leningrad, Stalingrad, Sevastopol Murmansk and Baku.
CHANGED
• Multiplayer compatibility version.
• Game settings when hosting a PBEM game will now be properly sent to the PBEM server.
• The AI will no longer redeploy its units guarding its borders.
FIXED
• You could play a PBEM game with extra mods that were not required by the session and had a gameplay impact on the game.
• Vichy France will now be properly created even if an Axis minor triggers France's capitulation.
• No place to deploy german reinforcements on scenario start in Silver Fox (campaign).
• P-40N was marked as carrier compatible even though it was not IRL.
• You could not upgrade/downgrade a unit to/from itself when it was from another country.
• Bug when trying to upgrade/downgrade a unit while having a full list of units in the basket list from previous pre-purchase actions.
• De Ruyter Dutch cruiser had wrong start commission date.
• UI scaling issues.
Download & Availability
Hex of Steel is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
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:
Ive been looking for a good hex war game on iPad. Panzer General was good, but this better. It has fantastic detail and depth. This has quickly become one of our favorite iPad games. And its even more impressive in that one guy developed the game and his brother did the artwork. Amazing work guys! Thank you for a fantastic game.
Great game but keeps crushing when we trying to load a Mod.
We're giving this 5 stars not because we have played this but because just by the description we can feel the vibes seems like a good game.
Great response due to game bugs this is definitely a labor of love and has a tough game play.
This game is one of the best games on App Store. It is realistic since it has many of real life factors of war such as moral and manpower. We are thankful that you continue to updated the game. Are you currently considering creating a Hex of Steel version for the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
If youre looking for a turn-based WW2 Europe game this is amazing!!! Only Suggestions 1. Diplomacy or something so neutral nations sometimes do war ( in reality just do like if a nation is neutral and not in war. Every turn they have like a 0.0001% chance to declare war on a Nation slightly bigger or less 2. Please update the map editor for mobile without the need for steam mods! We love this game but dont have the money to pay for a gaming laptop when we go places.
Game has a lot of potential but instructions vague and we have not been able to buy units despite having funds. Played German Campaign and afrika korps.
Like many strategy games, the learning curve is steep. The pace is slow. It can be frustrating at first, but once you learn the mechanics and get immersed in a campaign, you really do feel like you are fighting in WW2. Im particularly impressed with the sheer number of units available.
We love this game,but so many bugs,please fix them more often,love from China.
We got this game on pc and mobile. Every mobile war game but this one is either pay 2 win micro transaction theme park or poorly optimized. This is the best panzer general game on mobile period. Way better than the free Panzer Marshall. Even the pc version is up there with the greats like Panzer Corps. Dont be cheap pay the initial money for this game and ignore the lesser free games.
This a very good game that we have been looking for (among free games) and we are here to tell others that it is more than worth the purchase price. The Developer is very conscious about helping players and fixing/improving the game as a whole (Hes developing another game in the same genre for PC). There is also a good Discord server to support the game and thats helpful. This is how a modern day WW2 tactical strategy game that borrows from the table top board games that we played back in the day should look like and play like! Bravo.
Pretty good, some of the longer missions do drag onnn but that's okay for some people just not us. Really well made you can tell Old review: Japanese AI on late stage US island missions (iwo jima/okinawa) will rush the singular victory point and win in one turn before we can react. Had to go to standalone missions and start as Japan to find where it was we had to defend.
This game looks like it is probably a lot of fun on a PC, but as a mobile app we are finding it frustrating. The manual seems to be written for pC as it implies that there are a number of key binding actions that are supposed to be used in the game. However we have no clue how to do these actions in the mobile app. For example, there is a key binding listed for repair unit. How does one do this on the iPhone version? We have tried parking damaged planes on friendly airfields. No repair. Anchoring damaged ships in friendly harbors. No repair. Redeploying. No repair. We would recommend steering clear of this game as a mobile app for now, but the developer seems like a conscientious guy so perhaps in the future hell get these limitations hammered out. Perhaps he merely needs to write a more mobile-friendly set of instructions. TLDR: avoid for mobile use atm, possibly an epic game in the future.
Im an old Allied General and Panzer General fan from back in the PS1 days This game is like an upgrade of our old favorites. However Ive been playing various scenarios and every time we get close to winning, the AI suddenly generates 20-30 extra tanks/soldiers, and wipes us out in two turns! So frustrating. We have not one once since we started playing. Im about too just delete the game and see if we can get our old PlayStation running.
Love the campaigns, love the individual battles. We have not tried the multiplayer because we been having too much with the single player. Definitely a throw back to the panzer general games of the 90s but this does it better historical and game play wise. Thanks to the creators for making this game and making it a one time fee. Props to the developers. You made a great game.
The mobile version of the PC game HoS is incredible. It feels like a PC game, but it isnt. The developer seems to be very active and working hard on this game, the strategy is very good, the AI can be more historically accurate or more fictional. An example is the Soviets, which when they have this setting on, their policy is scorched earth. This detail makes the game more challenging since you need important points for cash to get more units. The AI doesnt make dumb moves frequently, and you have to watch out for supplies. Though, we really like effects and the game doesnt have much effects except for bombings on victory points, smoke, and the destruction of units. We would like to see when a unit dies, corpses or vehicle remains stay visible. This may be a little too much work but Id like to see this detail. The game is extremely replayable, and is online/offline. Anyways, this is a good game.
Great game but needs a manual dedicated for the iPad (cant move our cursor and right click.) The images shown on the manual are unlike what is seen in the iPad. It took us hours to figure out how to create a pontoon bridge or airfield. Nevertheless, well worth the $5 if youre a fan of 1990s hex PC war games.
Dont buy this game if playing on an iPad! You cant do research for one thing and all manuals are written for PC play. We want our money back! Edit: The developer contacted us and Ill work with them to resolve our problems. Probably some operator error involved, so Ill retract our initial comments until further notice. Edit: we were assisted by the developer and our problem was solved. Ill keep playing the game with 5 star review.
We really love this game! Its so hard to put down. Looks like a lot of effort went into making it. Historically accurate units and maps. Works great on our iPad.
If your looking for a turn based WW2 strategy game on IOS, this is your best choice by far. Only suggestion we can make is for more smaller scale standalone scenarios for the pacific front, similar to how we have scenarios focusing on the Poland, Hungary, Greece, and even ones focusing on specific battles like the Courland pocket, battle of the bulge, etc.
Amazing game we love it keep working on it.
Great game in the spirit of the old panzer blitz games made by Avalon Hill. This is done very well, great strategic depth, and most importantly its fun. Looks like the developer is very actively involved as well with regular updates.
On the iPhone 15 pro, the notch covers many starting menus like the main menu > play, standalone scenarios, etc. The rounded corners are also cutting off some ui like back buttons in the main menu. The manual linked to from the main menu is also missing iOS gestures and instead showed keyboard shortcuts, so maybe intended for macOS. That said, the game seems to have a solid reputation and we appreciate that the developer seems responsive on other reviews.
If your on the fence about this game, Dont be, it has a very dedicated dev team that is open and honest with players. The game gets progressively more challenging as you go on, there are tons of settings you can mess around with. We would say this is a definite must play for any war or strategy players. The units are unique to each country and the amount of variation in play styles is astounding, highly recommended (:.
We love it. Valentin otlichnik.
It appears you have one tutorial. It is not a tutorial. It did not tutor us in the slightest. We have no idea what we were supposed to be doing, how to do it or what we were accomplishing. We read the entire manual, and still did not know what we were supposed to be doing. Is there a tutorial that will actually teach us how to play the game? If not, how do we get our money back.
Great game been really enjoying the new update, except now it seems the AI is constantly trying to naval invade, which in a standalone scenario isnt so bad when we can modify our money production, but in a campaign focusing on land operations it gets to be a massive pain. Forcing you to invest into a significantly larger navy, occupying all tiles next to water, or purchasing defense's. All of which are extremely expensive, taking away funding for offensive operations. Also coastal guns can only be built around harbors and harbors cant be built at all. We would suggest either allowing coastal guns on coastal tiles or allowing engineers to build harbors, as they can already build airfields and factory's.
A few tips and improvements: we can't give you five stars for these reasons, but the game itself is a good one. The problem that the Apple version of the European map will flash back after opening the map needs to be solved. We remember that this problem did not exist in the previous version, so we believe the author can definitely solve this problem. This is a suggestion to create a folder dedicated to this game, similar to the archive mobile version of our World, so that the mobile version of the real implementation of module loading and unloading can better combine multiple, now the mobile version of the module is just a decoration, can not be imported, we hope you can solve these problems as soon as possible.
Love this game ! This is the closest thing we will ever get to panzer corps on iPhone . You are doing AMAZING work ! However we have one issue (thus why its 4 stars ) On the new iPhones with Dynamic island (D.we.) the D.we. Takes up a good portion of the menu on the side when playing . We dont know if you guys can do anything or add a option to move side bar around or something cause its a giant pain . Again this is not the developers fault and we will 100% continue to support the game with DLC or any purchases we can make ! Keep up the amazing work.
This games great we got it Mobile now that we can strategize on the Go! Accurate units great scenario and Campaign. Amazing work thanks. 5/5 Stars.
Hi we asked a question in our review and your answer seemed like a generic answer. Your response concerned mostly Macs which we didnt ask about. Let us try again; we are only concerned with IOS. Do you have a link where we could find documentation explaining what each BUTTON on the iOS version does and how new troops are acquired, upgraded etc. Basically a manual? Thanks in advance:-).
We posted a review on Sunday saying the game didnt work and was crashing constantly. So we decided to restart our device and now its running perfectly again! We also want to acknowledge that there is a real person reading your reviews and trying too fix those problems so thank you! For anybody wanting an amazing tactical/strategic ww2 game with over 2000 units we absolutely recommend this game it is the most fun strategy game Ive ever played. And it runs on mobile! 10/10 truly EPIC.
The game is great, but it doesnt fully fit the screen of the iPhone13 pro max :(.
Cannot assign units with iron cross on map editor also theres a bug woth the units soft amd hard attack modifier in the store.
After latest update no longer able to purchase or upgrade any unit.
Great game! Loads of fun. 2 requests would be to make the unit editor save the data. Anytime we tweak a unit from the unit list it loses the changes whenever we close out the game. Also from the unit purchase screen it is very hard to click the upgrades for units such as torpedoes/rockets for aircraft. The UI is so small. Could be biggerfor instance we dont need 6 items across the screen to select from. Would suggest reducing to 4 and making bigger. Our only two requests! Besides this FANTASTIC gamedid we already say that.
Great game, but when we join a faction, it takes 100x longer to get through every countrys turns. Please make a way to skip the turns.
We tried giving this a solid run through several of the maps and the German campaign. Nearly every time we ended a round the app crashed. In the middle of several dozen turns, the app crashed. Im currently running a Pacific map playing team Japan. After every end of turn, the app crashed. In fact, Im trying to advance beyond round five and cant because it crashes at the same point every time as the AI teams are taking their turns. We literally cannot advance this game any further! Ive tried replaying the round from a previous save and still had ten straight crashes right after AI Netherlands turn! So why 2 stars? This game actually has a lot of potential. The AI doesnt make moronic decisions like many other strategy games. In fact, Im curious as to why exactly the game crashes when it does. Its almost as if its overtaxing the iPads ability to compute what the AI is doing. Some of the other crashes appeared to be graphics related. We love the unit options and realism. The prices are a bit too high but its within tolerance. The terrain and weather effects are also great. We tried the upgrade option a few times and couldnt figure it out. There are too few menu helps. With some fixes, this game can be the best of the turn based strategy games. Please, please please fix the crash problems for the iOS platforms.
Trying hard to place units easily, set up scenarios in map editor but getting no where.
A great game with a TON of content and replayability. Very similar to the PC game Advanced Tactics gold. The developer constantly updates so nothing is static and the game is always improving. A few bugs we found: -the railway/road way desert tile does not appear in the map editor feature. -sometimes the screen goes blank when attempting to place a set voice to be held or select target unit in the map editor A few ideas to add: -add an undo button in the map editor -make it so that infantry are the only units that can capture cities -make AI more difficult by giving them cheaper units and out produce the human player -add helicopter units (attack and transport) because why not? Ha ha. It would be interesting to make a Vietnam war scenario. We look forward to this game as it keeps developing.
Game is a great game. Noticed that almost all the quick games now crash on load up, especially Europe 39,41,43.
The game crashes every time after we pick a scenario and it starts loading.
The full game doesnt fit on new gen we phones plz fix.
A good game, except there are no national borders, why.
Im loving the game. Well worth the price tag you have on it. The mechanics are so simple but deep at the same time. We only have a few problems that Im sure are only issues on mobile. First we have an iPhone 12 and the rounded corners cut off the supply and menu button. We can still push the menu button but can only see the last 3 numbers of how much supply we have. Also theres no way to see the detailed unit info for example the bonus that generals give units. Also we cant figure out a way to see the detailed info for different hexes as far as the defensive bonuss they give. Also its a little wonky trying to de select aircraft without accidentally moving them. Other than that this game is amazing keep up the great work.
If the crashes are fixed this game would absolutely get 5 stars. Very frustrating.
The research is exhaustive and the scope of the game boggles the mind. We have been playing board and computer war games since 1959 and have never seen a war game that allows one to play WW2 in so many scenarios with the difficulty levels so varied. We gave this 4 stars because this work of art is being developed as we speak. In any research there are bound to be mistakes. Valentin has made some but jumps on them like a hungry wolf and corrects them. The other reason why we gave "only" four stars was purely selfish. In our years playing mobile games we have never seen a believable game which portrays the Battle Of Britain. Not Seelowe, but the summer of 1940, when the fate of western civilization was up for grabs in this air war of attrition. Someone really needs to step up and give a young population of gamers a TRUE and ACCURATE account of the horrible danger that civilization was in and what could have and almost did happen were it not for some strange twists and the RAF. Valentin, we believe that you are such a man to pull this off and add this scenario to this stellar game which is being developed. If you can do this, good on you and you will have our applause. Hey, Val In response to your question about the objectives in the Battle of Britain scenario: The Luftwaffe needed to neutralize the RAF by destroying the airbases of Sector 11 faster than they could be repaired. (Attrition). In addition, the Germans needed to stop British aircraft production (Factories), but most of all needed to stop the training of new RAF pilots (Morale). The Luftwaffe also needed to defeat the resolve of the British by destroying their cities and way of life(Morale). Today we know that Seelowe was never really a viable option for the Germans in the summer of 1940. But the Brits were ready mentally at least (Morale). The Brits needed to keep a high rate of confidence (Morale) as an objective in order to keep producing aircraft, training pilots and making it so costly for the Luftwaffe in aircraft that it would affect German morale and force Hitler to do something stupid. If the British morale factor would have dipped too low, Churchill would have been voted out as PM and a new government would have been formed. One that would have probably recalled Halifax home to seek peace terms with Hitler. So MORALE seems to be the overall consideration in this scenario, which could be determined by plane losses, cities and factories destroyed along with airfields and radar stations neutralized. Germans…keep aircraft loss percentage low. Brits…keep morale high.
Not only am we impressed by the game itself but by the developers constant update of the game. This is his first game but it definitely will not be his last. Keep up the great work.
We just got this game a few hours ago and its very fun would recommend.
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 8.1.1
- Size: 342.30 MB
- iOS: 12.0 or later
- Languages: EN
- Content Advisory:
- Developer: Valentin Lievre
Last updated: 8th December 2025 | Genre: Strategy | Developer: Valentin Lievre