Tails of Iron
81
★ /10
Nintendo Switch, 
PC, 
PS4, 
PS5, 
Xbox One, 
Xbox Series X/S
Where to buy
Tails of Iron is a 2021 action RPG developed by Odd Bug Studio and published by United Label, released September 17, 2021 for PC, PlayStation, Xbox, and Switch. It holds Metacritic scores in the mid-to-high 70s, and its identity is instantly communicable: a hand-drawn storybook kingdom of rats at war with frogs, narrated end to end by Doug Cockle — the voice of Geralt of Rivia — since none of the animal characters speak.
Under the picture-book surface is a deliberately brutal souls-lite: parry colors, stamina, and boss fights bloody enough that the contrast with the art became the game’s signature.
Technical Specifications
| Attribute | Details |
|---|---|
| Developer | Odd Bug Studio |
| Publisher | United Label |
| Narrator | Doug Cockle (Geralt, The Witcher series) |
| Release | September 17, 2021 (PC, PS4/PS5, Xbox, Switch) |
| Metacritic | Mid-to-high 70s (by platform) |
| Free DLC | Bright Fir Forest |
| Sequel | Tails of Iron 2: Whiskers of Winter (2025) |
| Genre | Action RPG, souls-lite |
| Mode(s) | Single-player (~8–12 hours) |
Redgi and the Frog War
Young prince Redgi watches the Frog Clan storm the Rat Kingdom, murder his father the king, and scatter his brothers — and spends the game rebuilding his shattered home, settlement upgrades included, on the way to repaying the frogs in kind. Wordless grunts and pictorial speech bubbles carry the dialogue while Cockle’s gravel narration frames it as a grim fable — a storytelling combination reviewers singled out as the game’s most distinctive craft.
Reception
Critics praised the stunning hand-drawn art, the tough-but-fair color-coded combat (white flashes for parries, red for dodges, yellow for unblockables), and the density of gear experimentation in a compact runtime. The recurring criticisms: sluggish movement, backtracking-heavy fetch structure, and difficulty some players found mismatched to the storybook look — the r/patientgamers consensus, “short and sweet adventure,” captures the warm-with-caveats long tail. A free DLC, Bright Fir Forest, extended the campaign post-launch.
Where to Play It Today
Tails of Iron is on Steam, PlayStation, Xbox, and Switch, routinely under $10 on sale, with physical editions in circulation. Its 2025 sequel, Whiskers of Winter, deepens the formula and adds the difficulty options this game famously lacked.
