Fortify or Fall! Block Fortress 2 Review & Gameplay Insights

by Jim Smale · Published April 23, 2025 · Updated April 22, 2025

Block Fortress 2 Review dives deep into the latest installment of the beloved tower defense sandbox, exploring whether this sequel builds on its predecessor’s success or falls short. With a blend of strategy, base-building, and intense combat, this game offers endless possibilities—but does it truly deliver an experience worth your time? In this review, we break down gameplay mechanics, progression, and what makes Block Fortress 2 stand out in the crowded gaming market.

Block Fortress 2 Review Pros:

Decent graphics.
1.35GB download size.
Steam achievements.
Own in-game achievements with rewards.
Full controller support.
Graphics settings – preset, resolution, anti-aliasing, fps, shadows, soft shadows, enemy health bars, camera shake, and screen flashes.
Control options – look speed, attack look speed, field of view slider, Invert axis, lock aim, auto jump, attack (manual/auto/auto aim and manual), and whether button icons show on the screen.
Character creator for male and female players.
Tower defence gameplay.
Tutorial missions at the start.
Full 3D game world, and you have 360-degree camera control.
Looks like Minecraft and uses the whole everything is a block life.
The game is played in third person.
Orks are in the gam, and you get a brief pop-up of their name and fight style.
Wave-based combat, you need to repel the enemy and stop them from getting to your base.
Impressive on-screen enemy count.
In between waves, you can build defences, recruit soldiers, etc.
All Guns and mortars, etc, will shoot automatically when the enemy is within range.
Power dictates how much you can build and shows where you can build, so you power the guns and devices.
You see enemy health bars.
Day and night play a key role as guns are less accurate at night, but you can build light sources to help.
A compass at the top shows and helps with objectives and calling out enemies.
The Command ship is yours and is where you start each game, You can fully customise and decorate it.
Missions have a difficulty attached to them, and you can replay them from the menu.
Full mission creator, you can upload and download other players’ Creations.
Sandbox mode, where you can choose the seed and biome and create worlds.
Ten biomes – forest, tropical, arctic, volcanic, asteroid, desert, red desert, alpine, grasslands, and wasteland.
Share and download other players’ command ship designs.
When starting a mission, you are free to drop your barracks wherever you want all although they recommend doing it by ore and resources. You can also relocate, which will spawn a new part of the map, and you can also see where enemies will attack from.
Play how you want is the name of the game.
Set up your radial menu for building by adding any unlocked items like walls, mirrors, etc.
Place mining blocks on top of resources to get resources after each wave.
The game is fully open and is very customizable.
Barracks will spawn troops to help you, and you can also recruit them during a wave.
Unlock new items, weapons, soldier types, etc.
When you build items, they need not only power, but you pay with resources to build, and can sometimes choose which resource to pay with.
The game world is fully destructible.
Enemies can drop resources.
You earn experience and level up to unlock the new items.
Collect books from battles and learn about the characters and the game world.
You can pause the game.
Being third person, you can aim down sights to shoot or just hip fire.
Any blocks needing power will be clearly shown.
In between missions, you get an air drip, and you get to pick one of three rewards.
I don’t know what it is, but I still cannot stop myself from playing it; it has a strong hook for unlocking new weapons, etc.
You can upgrade weapons and buy new items, and mods during a game.
Rewind option all although it’s limited.
First-person view is available and is just a button press.
Upgrade your barracks to improve the soldiers you recruit, but also open up higher-ranked weapons and items.
There is three things to level up and unlock new toys – tech level, block verse, and builder.
Full stats screen.

Block Fortress 2 Review Cons:

Uses the spelling and personality of the Orks in Warhammer 40k.
Performance goes up and down a lot.
The walls and blocks are really sticky, so you are constantly climbing on them or grabbing them.
Swapping weapons, placing objects, and anything that isn’t shooting is clunky and slow.
Getting your head around all the resources and costs is confusing.
I never felt like I knew what was going I, like enemy numbers, resource management.
It costs so much just to build a semi-decent base.
The menus and grids over items are all unclear and clunky.
Goes for the Minecraft look in so many ways, but you cannot just shoot or mine blocks out of the way; only the enemy and particular items can get rid of the blocks.
The tutorial stuff doesn’t go far enough.
Missions and sharing projects are not as straightforward as they should be.
Enemies can get stuck, and this is only an issue as you can only finish a mission once everyone is dead, so their getting stuck means you have to track them down.
I’m saying it again, but the menus are horrendous.
Even the simple act of quitting the game isn’t straightforward.