TheRetroArcade
Veteran
Posts: 1,965
Joined: Feb 2026
Joined: Feb 2026
The Bazaar is a crazy place.
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What was the worst PC launch of last year? There's no shortage of possible answers, everything from Monster Hunter Wilds' no good, very bad PC performance, to whatever the hell happened with MindsEye. But allow me to nominate another contender for 2025's most infamous award. The Bazaar is a charming, colourful auto-battler that, when it released back in March last year, managed to alienate almost its entire community—squandering its potential through a flurry of bad press and fan outrage. After a positive beta period and a smattering of positive streamer attention, its official launch introduced a bevy of microtransactions and monetisation schemes that soured its playerbase and made it incredibly hard to actually recommend.
Which puts me in a difficult position, because… it's really, really good. I think you should play it.
The Bazaar takes place in a sort of galactic marketplace. You pick your hero and visit a selection of shops to buy items that you place onto your board. Visit the weapon shop, for instance, and you might be offered a Katana that does low damage on a fast cooldown. Or maybe a cutlass, which is slower, but attacks twice and deals double crit damage—tripling its initial attack value. If you're lucky, you'll be offered a sharkray, which gains damage every time you haste something on your board.
At the end of each day, you fight another player's board. Here you watch as items automatically trigger until one player is declared the winner based on the strength of the board they've assembled.
Win or lose, a new day begins, with more shops and events that let you strengthen your board—refining, improving or pivoting to create the strongest build you can make from the options you're given.
The juice here is in how varied The Bazaar's many items can be, and the wild synergies they can unlock. Most shops only sell items from your hero's item pool, but despite that restriction there's still plenty of variety each run. Do you go for an ammo build, designed to deal enough fast damage to kill your opponent before all of your items run out of charges and stop working? Do you go for a poison build, which is slower, but can bypass any shield items your opponent may have? Do you focus on 'friends'—a mixture of aquatic creatures and robotic critters—to take advantage of some powerful late-game large items that buf...Read more: Full article on www.pcgamer.com
What do you think about this?
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
You are now subscribed
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Every Friday
GamesRadar+
Your weekly update on everything you could ever want to know about the games you already love, games we know you're going to love in the near future, and tales from the communities that surround them.
Every Thursday
GTA 6 O'clock
Our special GTA 6 newsletter, with breaking news, insider info, and rumor analysis from the award-winning GTA 6 O'clock experts.
Every Friday
Knowledge
From the creators of Edge: A weekly videogame industry newsletter with analysis from expert writers, guidance from professionals, and insight into what's on the horizon.
Every Thursday
The Setup
Hardware nerds unite, sign up to our free tech newsletter for a weekly digest of the hottest new tech, the latest gadgets on the test bench, and much more.
Every Wednesday
Switch 2 Spotlight
Sign up to our new Switch 2 newsletter, where we bring you the latest talking points on Nintendo's new console each week, bring you up to date on the news, and recommend what games to play.
Every Saturday
The Watchlist
Subscribe for a weekly digest of the movie and TV news that matters, direct to your inbox. From first-look trailers, interviews, reviews and explainers, we've got you covered.
Once a month
SFX
Get sneak previews, exclusive competitions and details of special events each month!
What was the worst PC launch of last year? There's no shortage of possible answers, everything from Monster Hunter Wilds' no good, very bad PC performance, to whatever the hell happened with MindsEye. But allow me to nominate another contender for 2025's most infamous award. The Bazaar is a charming, colourful auto-battler that, when it released back in March last year, managed to alienate almost its entire community—squandering its potential through a flurry of bad press and fan outrage. After a positive beta period and a smattering of positive streamer attention, its official launch introduced a bevy of microtransactions and monetisation schemes that soured its playerbase and made it incredibly hard to actually recommend.
Which puts me in a difficult position, because… it's really, really good. I think you should play it.
The Bazaar takes place in a sort of galactic marketplace. You pick your hero and visit a selection of shops to buy items that you place onto your board. Visit the weapon shop, for instance, and you might be offered a Katana that does low damage on a fast cooldown. Or maybe a cutlass, which is slower, but attacks twice and deals double crit damage—tripling its initial attack value. If you're lucky, you'll be offered a sharkray, which gains damage every time you haste something on your board.
At the end of each day, you fight another player's board. Here you watch as items automatically trigger until one player is declared the winner based on the strength of the board they've assembled.
Win or lose, a new day begins, with more shops and events that let you strengthen your board—refining, improving or pivoting to create the strongest build you can make from the options you're given.
The juice here is in how varied The Bazaar's many items can be, and the wild synergies they can unlock. Most shops only sell items from your hero's item pool, but despite that restriction there's still plenty of variety each run. Do you go for an ammo build, designed to deal enough fast damage to kill your opponent before all of your items run out of charges and stop working? Do you go for a poison build, which is slower, but can bypass any shield items your opponent may have? Do you focus on 'friends'—a mixture of aquatic creatures and robotic critters—to take advantage of some powerful late-game large items that buf...Read more: Full article on www.pcgamer.com
What do you think about this?