The Bazaar

At its core, The Bazaar is a great game. I've played the game before it came to Steam since March 2025 and have just short of 400 hours in it. I've seen its highs and I've seen its lows. Sadly, despite how good the game itself might be, the reason I don't recommend this game isn't because of it, but rather because of the development team. Here's why. [list] [*][b]Balance[/b] Up to this point, there's been four seasons. Each season has introduced ten new cards for two of the heroes. Every single one of those expansions has dominated the meta, before being heavily nerfed. The design team is clearly inexperienced, but even worse than that, it's painfully obvious that they just don't balance test the content they're putting out. When patch notes are released, the problematic cards are blatantly easy to identify, to the point where it's baffling that they didn't see the issue. No one is going to get balance perfectly right all of the time, but they drop the ball 100% of the time. To add to...

Over 100 hours in the non-steam version of this game! Highly DO NOT RECOMMEND this game. The core gameplay is pretty fun, the art style is good, but you can get similar experiences with other games on the market (backpack battles). There are numerous technical issues with this game (like run progress being reset!), lots of annoying bugs that have existed since the beginning. However the most concerning aspects of this game are its monetization, management, and moderation. Us early backers (way back on IndieGogo https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-bazaar--4#/) were promised a F2P experience where heroes could be unlocked with in-game currency. There were numerous controversies (NFTs) before that but this is the dealbreaker for me personally. They have been silencing everybody on Discord/Reddit who even have questions about the latest monetization rug-pull and it is truly saddening. This game has no future. It has ping-ponged between free to play/pay to play, and now look at the DL...

WARNING: While the gameplay is top notch there are some considerations when playing this game, namely the communication and community support. Any neutral statement, constructive criticism, or disagreement with the developer's actions will be met with a ban in any of the public forums (Discord, Reddit, Steam). They have a track record of making sweeping changes to core functionality with little to no notice. It seems to me that they select the least consumer friendly option first and then are forced to backtrack due to the overwhelming responses they get from their players. They have broken promises made early in development and have dramatically changed portions of the game that people have already paid for. Balance is neither a goal nor a strength of the game and there will often be weeks or months long periods where broken items will dominate the meta. That being said, I bought in as a founder in early access and have been playing regularly since. I have put hundreds of hou...

Edit: since my review they have also brought back the launch bundle. Makes things much more palatable, but shows just how right I am about them being greedy/aggressive/predatory and slowly rolling it back to an acceptable level. Glad to see them slowly making it right, but im banned because someone told his mods/devs to be ban happy this week. I have a couple hundred hours on the Tempo launcher. I really like this game, I think it's possibly the best auto battler out there, but the devs are awful for how they are monetizing it. In less than a year it has changed monetization methods multiple times with the devs trying to push predatory and disgusting monetization onto its community and rolling it back after backlash. I think what they have done with going from free to play to $40 base game with $20 characters is too much for this game. Not to mention the $80 cosmetic micro transactions that they have already removed (rolling back after backlash AGAIN) and the predatory FOMO launch bu...

Finally, there is a way to review this game without getting banned on Discord & Reddit Got 412Hours in this game. The moderator team bans any criticism of the game immediately, whether on Discord, Reddit, or the Steam forums. Take a look at the second Bazaar Reddit and see what ridiculous statements get you banned. The best example would be that other long *** review the main guy from the company answered too. Guess what. Banned They keep saying that the game was not planned as an NFT game. But it's relatively easy to find a few comments that say the opposite. Could be tinkered with since I didn't see the original post, but I highly doubt that if you want to see em just check out the big review. The mint numbers and limited quantity of items, as well as the planned but canceled player trading market just say otherwise. Within a few months, the monetization was changed four times. From f2p to p2w to better f2p and finally to B2P with prices that are far too high. 80 bucks for a...

DO NOT PLAY THIS. edit: 500$ worth of mtx day one btw I played this game for 500h (proof: https://imgur.com/a/aJ9b3Hx ) and i have seen some stuff The Tempo team and specifically their boss reynad are scummy as hell. I have never seen that many lies, 180's, censorship from a single company. The game was supposed to be free 2 play. Now they're changing that. The game was supposed to be a crypto game, they said that over and over again in early development. Then everyone hated NFT's and they started pretending that their crypto idea was just some vague idea that was never really something they seriously thought about. When reynad literally said they wouldnt release on console/steam because they didnt allow it. The game was promised to not have pay 2 win, then when expansions came you could pay to get them before other people. The marketplace was still supposed to come just without the crypto, a lot of people farmed chests to get the early cosmetics to trade later. Marketplace...

After a lifetime of promising to be F2P forever with no pay to win mechanics, and previously promising to never be on steam (circa june 2025) the devs have continued to break promises. The gameplay is consistently fun, and I was a closed beta player who subscribed to the monthly subscription to multiple months. The pivot in monetization & silencing of any who expressed discontent with it has done nothing but prove that the company does not care to commit to the promises they make. Releasing the game for $40 in its current state is unacceptable, and I cannot encourage any new player to pick it up unless it is on heavy discount, and despite loving Mak as a character I do not encourage buying him.

F2P game changes monetization for the 4th time. Now $40 with launch bundle discount and multiple $80 MTX bundles. Cash grab scramble from NFT dev bro. Milking playerbase for a Steam account link for $20. Can't be trusted. Clueless. Balance is always horrible. Pumping out content ignoring balance and QOL. GGs FOMO launch bundle live again after weekend btw. LMAO.

Game had some potential and would have been an easy recommend, but unfortunately Tempo and Reynad have gone above and beyond in all the worst ways possible. Any suggestions or criticism leads to immediate bans on Reddit and Discord. Reynad shares outright lies to try and justify the scummy changes to monetization and screwing over early adopters. They could have been transparent and honest about why they needed to make changes, but instead went with gaslighting and hostility. At this point the only hope I could have for the game would be for Reynad to turn off social media forever and for them to be bought out by a solid publisher. However as it stands, it looks very likely this game will fail and be eventually abandoned due purely to mismanagement.

Probably the most predatory and slimy money grab you will ever see, they received 4 million dollars in crowdfunding, along with two large private investments and sold founder packs for 30-50 dollars all while promising the game will be truly free-to-play. Since then they have just ran a chain of rug pulling tactics, starting with some dodgy NFT thing, then going egregiously pay-to-win onto a subscription model and now re-launching here on steam with as "premium" buy-to-play. The game director is also clinically insane, believing in the second coming of jesus christ and running the games discord and reddit like a totalitarian regime This game will either die or be completely free to play again within the next 6 months - do not buy. Saddest part of all this is the game had so much potential.