Modern warfare RTS Broken Arrow finally opens up on faction balance struggles

Broken Arrow has struggled to find a balancing sweet spot since its launch in June, and new stats show that, despite the dev's best efforts, one side continues to win out. Striking that fine line between factions is a challenge faced by even the best RTS games, and Steel Balalaika's realistic, modern-military effort is no different. In an attempt to alleviate community concerns, it's been tracking metrics behind the scenes and has now published some more detailed win rates, but the deck still seems to be slightly in one team's favor.

Ed's Broken Arrow review found its unerring attention to detail to be both to its credit and detriment. It's a difficult and demanding game to learn, and that's likely to turn away as many as it draws in. Its tale of escalating global tensions, which pits the forces of the United States and Russia against one another across both a single-player campaign and a skirmish mode with up to 5v5 battles, is stark and uncompromising, but that's part of the appeal. Unfortunately, so far Broken Arrow has struggled to land the balance between the sides, but that might be about to change.

In a new blog, the developer explains that Broken Arrow is the team's first major project "and a significant milestone," made by an "incredibly close-knit group of about ten people." Post-launch, the studio has expanded and brought in new specialists "to develop the project much more efficiently, expand the in-game arsenal with new units, and bring to life ideas that once seemed too ambitious for a small team."

It says, "Balance has always been and remains one of the key non-technical aspects of our game and others in this genre. As players ourselves, we've also enjoyed taking part in 'forum wars' debating the strength of certain units. Since the game's release, we've seen intense discussions around faction strength, 'overpowered' units, and other balance-related topics." Initially, it didn't have formal stats, but the team has since developed internal metrics and can now put numbers to the feelings.

Win rates between the sides "have remained largely unchanged over time, with a consistent difference of about 7%." This falls in the favor of the Russian forces, which have a 53.66% win rate to the USA's 46.34% (across the entire ELO range and without considering mirror matches). Stats show that at some of the higher ELO levels, American win rates do pull slightly ahead, but this is for a very small percentage of players.

Perhaps even more notable is the distribution of all available specialization combinations, seen below. This charts their popularity (how often that combination is chosen) against their win rate, and the big takeaway is that all of the Russian options sit above every single one of the USA's. "The latest patch was built directly on these data insights," the developer explains, saying it hopes the numbers can help players "better understand the reasoning behind certain balance decisions, and how future ones may be shaped."

While Steel Balalaika is working on leveling the playing field, it does have some unquestionably good news to share. It's been working on one of the most highly requested features: allied bots that can fight alongside you. Its goal is to make these "predictable and reliable teammates, yet flexible enough to adapt to different in-game situations." The feature is now in final testing, and it will soon be included as part of the custom lobby options.

We've put together our picks of the best war games on PC if realistic battles are your thing, along with the best multiplayer games in 2025 to test yourself against the world.

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