Dunkirk – The Forgotten Soldier

Genre: Action-Platformer / 2-Stick Shooter / Roguelike / Arcade

Players: 1

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Review:

Dunkirk – The Forgotten Soldier, released in 2026 on Nintendo Switch, is a game that combines Arcade-style Action-Platformer gameplay with 2-Stick Shooter mechanics and Roguelike elements with players taking the role of a lone soldier firing his weapon to ward off air-dropped bombs, enemy paratroopers, enemy aircraft, and invading tanks, trying to survive as long as possible.

The presentation here is simple and feels a bit lacking, with 2D visuals depicting the background and characters, and while the war-torn city locale looks decent enough, the characters look generic and uninteresting. All of this is backed by extremely repetitive military march-style music that quickly got annoying to the point where I wanted to shut it off.

When it comes to the gameplay, I actually really like the core idea of an Arcade-style Action-Platformer combined with a Roguelike, where you’re defending your space from increasingly more numerous and difficult enemies while upgrading between rounds with Roguelike upgrades. The problem? Well, every part of this formula is sub-par or poorly-implemented.

The platforming in this game is anemic, and it’s little help when dodging enemy fire – you’ll mainly use it to weakly get up and out of the pit on the left side of the screen or over the barricade on the right side. Oh yeah, that’s another thing – zero level variety, with the same boring level through the entire game.

The action side of things is terrible too. You will only have one weapon throughout a run, with only three to choose from to start with, and two of the three are locked behind purchases requiring a significant amount of in-game currency. Your weapon fires agonizingly slowly, and while one of the Roguelike upgrades improves rate of fire, the improvement is so minimal that you’ll never find it getting to a rate that’s actually enjoyable.

Meanwhile, the Roguelike elements are a letdown too. There aren’t many upgrades that pop up during a run, and most of them are boring stat improvements to things like attack speed or power, likelihood of drops, and occurrence of automated anti-air explosions. There’s no finding synergy here, no feeling of getting that one upgrade you really needed to solidify a strategy. And while there are permanent “Roguelite” upgrades, it takes so long to earn these that you’ll be stuck playing the game as-is for far too long before they even matter.

It’s frustrating that Dunkirk – The Forgotten Soldier so thoroughly bungles every part of its execution, because it genuinely has a solid premise. But when this is the result, you’re much better off skipping this game and picking up a better Roguelike. Trust me, there are plenty out there.

tl;dr – Dunkirk – The Forgotten Soldier is a game that combines Arcade-style Action-Platformer gameplay with 2-Stick Shooter mechanics and Roguelike elements with players taking the role of a lone soldier fighting off various enemies. The premise here is sound, but this game messes up every part of its premise – the Platforming is terrible, the action is agonizingly slow, and the Roguelike elements are dull, slow to progress, and have too little effect. Don’t bother with this one.

Grade: D+

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