Shardwatch Dominion Review – Surrounded and Outnumbered on PS5

Shardwatch Dominion is a tower defence game where monsters attack from every direction as we try to protect a fortress with a limited number of towers and resources. Developed for consoles by Huge Pixel and published by Brainium Games, this cheap-as-chips strategy game has a few interesting ideas for those who enjoy planning defences and watching hordes of enemies meet their doom.

Trouble from Every Direction

In Shardwatch Dominion, we have a fortress that contains precious crystals. Our job is to stop waves of monsters from destroying it. That’s pretty much the gist of it. No elaborate story or complicated objectives to understand. It all comes down to building towers, improving our defences and trying to survive long enough to face the next wave.

Since the battlefield is circular and our fortress is in the middle, enemies approach from different directions, forcing us to protect the entire perimeter. Not being able to concentrate all our defences on one side presents some interesting challenges, further complicated by the limited number of towers we can construct. Speaking of towers, archer towers provide basic offensive support, while walls and spikes help protect vulnerable areas. Things can get quite hectic in a jiffy, especially when we start placing towers capable of launching sawblades or attacking enemies from greater distances. Magical abilities expand our options even further, and we were equally excited to summon lightning, drop meteors and use vines to slow approaching monsters. We can even call upon a spirit that repairs damaged towers.

We’ve seen most of these things before, but they’re still fun to use, especially when we start combining them and coming up with different strategies. For example, slowing down enemies with vines gives our attacking towers more time to deal damage, while spikes can punish monsters that manage to get too close to our fortress. There are never enough resources to construct everything we’d like, so choosing where to invest becomes an important part of the experience. We enjoyed experimenting with different combinations and trying new things, particularly when our original plans fell apart and we had to improvise.

Money Makes the Monsters Go Away

Well, not directly, but having a healthy supply of crystals certainly helps. Resources are needed to construct our defences, and crystal miners are our lads when it comes to generating the income necessary to expand them.

This creates an interesting dilemma, as we often wondered whether to spend our available resources on another attacking tower or build a miner that could help us afford better defences later. If we don’t play it smart, things can go wrong pretty quickly. Between waves, we also receive upgrade points that can be invested in various improvements. We can increase damage, extend attack range, improve resource production and raise the maximum number of towers we’re allowed to build. There are quite a few options to consider, and we liked how even a small change to our setup could make a difference when the next wave arrived.

Small Game, Familiar Pleasures

Our score: 7/10

• Game: Shardwatch Dominion
• Platform: PlayStation 5
• Developer (console): Huge Pixel
• Publisher: Brainium Games
• Release date: October 23, 2026
• Genre: Tower Defense / Strategy
• Mode: Single-player
• Price: $6.99 (US PlayStation Store)