Last updated on December 17th, 2025 at 03:47 am
To The Trenches – Strategy Game Review
To The Trenches is a Strategy/Simulation game from Dad Made, LLC, first launched in 26th April 2024.
It’s rated 12+ and currently has 5,277+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes To The Trenches Stand Out
Lead your army through the chaos of WW1 Trench Warfare in this intense, retro-style RTS! Command troops, deploy brutal artillery strikes, and dominate the battlefield with tactical precision. With procedurally generated battles, every fight offers unique challenges and infinite replayability.
Deploy specialized platoons with Sharpshooters, Flame Troopers, Sentries, Trench Raiders and Medics. Utilize powerful Armored Vehicles and Planes to shift the tides of war. Face ever-changing weather and battlefield conditions ranging from mud, lightning storms, blizzards and sandstorms that dramatically impact tactics, forcing you to adapt or perish!
Choose from historically inspired factions including Germany, France, Britain, Austria-Hungary, Italy, Russia and the Ottoman Empire, each featuring unique perks and battlefield strengths. Make strategic choices with an in-depth upgrade system through the Officer Tree, enhancing your army's performance and unlocking devastating weaponry at your disposal. Experience gripping decisions through dilemmas that affect morale, resources and battle performance. No two campaigns are ever alike.
▶ FEATURES ◀
[ENDLESS WARFARE]
— Procedurally generated battlefields to ensure a new experience every time.
[SPECIALIZED UNITS]
— Unlock, upgrade and deploy units including Sharpshooters, Flame Troopers, Medics and Tanks.
[AUTHENTIC WW1 SETTING]
— Immerse yourself in detailed pixel art visuals, showcasing the brutality of trench warfare and tough battlefield conditions.
[UNIQUE FACTIONS]
— Each faction brings unique advantages to the battlefield.
[OFFLINE FRIENDLY]
— Enjoy seamless play anytime, no internet required.
[PLAYER EXPERIENCE]
— Free to play and enjoy, with fair in-app options and no intrusive ads.
Command. Adapt. Survive.
Do you have what it takes to lead your army to victory? Enlist now and head To The Trenches!
▶ SOCIALS ◀
Discord — https://discord.gg/3TJ6sH3qQG
BlueSky — https://bsky.app/profile/dadmadethings.com
Reddit — https://www.reddit.com/r/tothetrenches/
YouTube — https://www.youtube.com/@DadMadeGames
TikTok — https://www.tiktok.com/@dadmade
X — https://twitter.com/DadMadeGames
This Strategy game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, To The Trenches is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 20th November 2025
Recent improvements include:
[ BUGFIXES ]
- Fixed issue with Armoured Vehicle pathfinding
- Fixed several bugs that caused crashing
- Fixed a bug where the desert battlefield loaded instead of mud
- Fixed a bug where seasonal objects spawned onto the battlefield
Download & Availability
To The Trenches is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
Get To The Trenches 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:
We love this game is because it makes the time go by we love how they have the wind resistance against your missiles so you really have to be accurate and use coordinates and how to attack.
We bought the unlimited version and it is so far beyond fun, good game.
The game iw honestly pretty confusing at first but its really fun once you get the hang of it.
Make units well some free please.
Love controlling all the troops. Makes us worried if they all die.
Amazing game but the tech tree a could use a bit more stuff.
This is far the best game we ever play on our phone. We would recommend for the future a mode that allows you to edit the campaign or game to, for example, create larger maps with unlimited resources, regardless of whether your phone explodes.
Good game only if you buy unlimited version.
This is our favorite game on mobile, and the developer just keeps putting more and more effort into it. We dont usually pay for stuff on mobile games, but l bought the premium version and Im happy l did. If the developer ever reads this, you rock man. Keep doing what you do.
The game is pretty fun and we like upgrading our army but every mission seems the same. We also think that your troops should be able to interact with the trenches in the middle of the maps.
We cant seem to figure out how to equip or use the strafing run or mortar team ability. Its just not on our screen when we go into a battle.
The animation and gameplay both were executed very well. Its the pacing thats the issue. The game, in its current state, does not increase the level difficulty fast enough, especially if you purchase the full game. In less than 5 hours of on and off play, we were able to complete the daily, weekly, and monthly missions, as well as get over 90% of the available upgrades. For $5, it should be either longer (with some sort of story mode to keep the players attention maybe?) or more engaging by increasing the level difficulty sooner. Havent played a level higher than 2 stars yet.
90% of the content is paywalled, if you want any troop type other than rifle platoon you have to pay. Any commander depth or interest you have to pay. Add this to the fact that the commands are way too simple and the troops are terrible, almost dying to get themselves shot. Theres no strategic depth.
The game is alright but you have to buy the unlimited version to get 80% of the stuff and to be able to get quests for bonds, everything is just so expensive playing for free.
When we try to play a match it crashes still, please fix.
Fun game, ai is very predictable and always the same though. They always just attack.
We have had this game for a while now, we loved this game, To the point where we would play it every day, and we got pretty far along in the game. But we just lost all our data, we had maxed troops, almost fully maxed reseach trees, and stacked armies. We spent money on this game for unlimited access we hope the developers can help us fix this It would be sad to let go of this game.
Please read and respond, When we try to buy the ulimited version, it tells us it wont connect to online services. Could you please tell us how to fix this issue.
Im confused how youre supposed to get unlimited version. We have no option to get it for it only says that Im not connected to online services? Please help.
Definitely a fun game to play, the sound effects and visuals give a pretty dynamic warfare game. Brings us back to the addicting games days in school, a couple things we would suggest. As far as gameplay, Ive seen recently newer maps? With a trench, we noticed it seems more of a visual overlay than it is acting as a legit trench. So maybe finding some way to setup troop advancement and can hunker down in those trenches to dominate even more. Survival mode is super cool, a fun switch up from the main game. We really hope it stays after the Halloween update ends, stays in the realism trench warfare vibes too. Lastly, we think increasing coins per match by one or two would be cool, we feel like we cant upgrade troops AND perks. But we get wanting transactions to buy more.
This is a very good game and Im not usually one for iOS games. Quick battles, dont need WiFi. We dont mind the endless battle days but one thing that we would love to see added would be some type of campaign added. They also seem to keep up with the maintenance of the game as well as adding new content. Excited to see where this may go.
So our save file that we have spent money on and have all the upgrades isnt working so essentially we wasted our money.
Let us start by saying this is a fun little time passer. For what it is, its neat. The only real issues we see are with the survival mode. Many of the power-ups are almost entirely useless. The Better Rations in particular is absolutely unnecessary, since by the time it comes to have any use, youve already been overwhelmed. Also, the Unexpected Potential power up has a 1/3 chance to give you a flamethrower unit. Their range is laughable, their damage is extremely underwhelming, and they do damage your other units when they explode upon death. The Experimental Medicine which revives your fallen soldiers does NOT apply to your machine gun nests. Once theyre gone, its over. Also, dont even bother with artillery/mortars. You wont hit the broad side of a barn, and if you do, the damage is rarely lethal. Strafing run is OK once you figure how to use it well, but the 50 second cooldown is harsh. We think the ability to re-roll power ups would cure many of these problems. Other than whats listed, its a decent game. Just needs some tweaking.
We just updated the game to the recent halloween edition or whatever you call it. Now our previous save file (which we played like 270 battles) is unreadable and makes the game crashes. Also you can't close the daily events in the new game we initiated.
The pixel art is great. The pathing could use some work. The targeting could use some work. There are some bugs in this that drive you crazy. Overall though its great if you like these kinds of strategy war games. Also the zombie mode is amazing. Hope they keep it around.
Amazing game very fun. Developer and team are very cool! Updates are huge love every feature. PLEASE KEEP ADDING NEW FEATURES.
The update brought a lot of bugs, it crashes pretty often especially when gas is used. Never had a crash before the update. On iphone 16, latest OS.
Cool concept but unless you pay money, youre not gonna progress far.
Fun little blast the enemy game up grade your artillery first.
We teach History. We play video games. We really like this game.
You have to pay for anything cool in the game including almost all the new stuff they added we would buy it but Ive made a rule for ourselves that we dont spend money on mobile games so.
Its a pretty casual fun game. We feel there is a bit of lack of strategy and the levels dont get hard fast. Glad to see they are still adding things and its getting better all the time.
This game is a chill strategy game.
Ive gotten the add free/ultimate version! Definitely worth it and only $4! Too good of a game, now Im addicted.
The games a bit grindy, and we highly recommend you buy premium.
We dont understand why u have to get the ulimited version just to get most things. We get the developers want support but its just a pixelated game and we believe its a little petty tho maybe Im just in a bad mood, sorry to complain, its a really fun game for killing time, tho theres a variety of ideas we think would improve this title.
Overall, not a bad game but its a bit of a grind if you arent going the pay to win route.
We love the idea of this game and we want more! There is so much here that is amazing! We love the speed of the battles, we think tank strength is pretty well balanced (we dont think Ive played enough to tell, though). We like artillery ability, however, we think it would be cool to have an actual artillery gun behind your trench that had animated firing. Overall though, that ability is very good! Something also more on the cosmetic side Id like to see is customizing the uniform color of your platoons, or at least have colored icons above the soldiers (similar to the gear icon, but maybe shown as a colored triangle) to show their platoon. On another note relating to platoons, we think the player should be able to retreat either certain soldiers to the trench, or retreat all remaining soldiers in a platoon off the battlefield to help preserve them. Another thing we would like to see is for the soldiers to use cover, and maybe gain small cover bonuses, as well as adding a Hold Position feature that bolsters defense but prevents movement and maybe increased vulnerability to artillery fire. These are all just a couple of suggestions for the actual battles, but we think there can also be improvements in the Menu as well! We feel like there needs to be some sort of goal the player is trying to achieve in a big picture kind of way. We think that there also needs to be more choice in the difficulty of each mission, increasing risk for a higher reward possibly. We also think that some kind of campaign map would add so much to the importance of each battle, trying to secure a supply route or stop enemy advance. We also think that some battles shouldnt be to claim the enemy trench, rather to survive a certain number of attacks. There are so many possibilities here, and it would be cool to see those in the future! We also think that the occasional choices outside of battles would benefit extremely from this, allowing a larger diversity of random events with actual weight in the decision, rather than choosing to pay to gain a random buff or to not pay and nothing happen (as most of the decisions are now). We think all if all this is added, it would make this game even more awesome than it is already! Keep up the work developing this please! :).
Great game but medic ai wont do their job.
Can you add a zoom in and out it would make gameplay easier and you could see the whole battlefield.
We love the game the graphics and animations are so good however it feels repetitive so they should add a feature where you can set up you defenses like barbed wire and bunkers and have more urban combat and more controls to troops.
And the games been a blast every time, only one thing Id personally like to see added is the ability to move your troops around in your platoon. Other than that its really good.
In our opinion Im into games like this and we truly enjoy the fact that its realistic yet its a 8 bit game at the same time.
Pretty fun but a lot of its locked.
If youre looking for a game that will pass time and that actually takes you playing the game to get more things. This is your game, very fun and addicting.
Old school game worth spending the $3.00 to get the full version.
We like how the style of this game is. Its very fun to play and we think other people will like this game.
We invested early on to this game so glad we much love.
Recently downloaded this game to find something new to play & wasnt let down after playing for awhile we upgraded pretty much everything & noticed if the game got a couple more updates & added features it would be even better & Id definitely buy the unlimited version then if we had maybe different artillery shell options, with more damage & shrapnel options, maybe even plane bombing or naval ship shelling , different vehicles from your faction to choose from & send out whether it be land or air , & way more added officer updates. Lastly if the cost of everything upgrades wise could be tweaked as it does take quite awhile to grind & upgrade everything other than that im definitely a fan of this game & will continue to wait for updates & new features.
Its fun when you actually spend the 3 dollars.
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 1.7.8
- Size: 326.98 MB
- iOS: 15.0 or later
- Languages: EN
- Content Advisory: Frequent/Intense Cartoon or Fantasy Violence
- Developer: [Dad Made, LLC]()
Last updated: 20th November 2025 | Genre: Strategy, Simulation | Developer: Dad Made, LLC