Kingdom Rush 5: Alliance TD

Few tower defense franchises have Kingdom Rush's staying power. Ironhide Game Studio has published mainline entries since 2011, and by the time Alliance TD arrived in July 2024, the series had well over a decade to refine its specific formula: linear lanes, upgradeable towers, hero units that level up across a campaign, and boss fights that demand real tactical repositioning rather than just bigger numbers. Alliance TD's hook is a new one for the series — Linirea's usual defenders and the Dark Army they've spent four games fighting are forced into an uneasy truce against a greater threat — and on its own mechanical terms, it delivers exactly the tight, readable tower defense the franchise is known for. What makes this entry worth a closer look is the specific and pointed way a meaningful slice of the series' own long-time fanbase has pushed back against it.

What still works

The fundamentals are intact. Placing towers, managing upgrade paths, and positioning hero units against escalating enemy waves is exactly as engaging as previous entries, and newcomers with no history with the series will find a well-made, accessible tower defense game with real tactical depth once they engage with it seriously. The alliance framing gives this specific entry a narrative hook the series hasn't used before, and the fifteen-year anniversary content Ironhide shipped in July 2026 — alongside consistent sale support and publisher promotion — points to a studio that's still genuinely invested in the franchise rather than coasting on its name alone.

What long-time fans are actually saying

The negative review sample here is unusually coherent for a game sitting at an aggregate 88% positive score, and it's worth taking that coherence seriously rather than dismissing it as scattered grumbling. The most common specific complaint is length and structure: several reviewers report finishing the main campaign in around seven hours, and note that additional story content — full campaigns, not minor add-ons — is sold separately as paid DLC rather than included with the NZ$28.99 base purchase. One reviewer puts the mobile-versus-Steam price gap directly: "I would say it's worth purchasing on your phone for 6.99. 20 dollars c'mon Ironhide." Another calls out the same structural issue from a different angle: "It's fun, very nice. However it's extremely short and require you to buy more campaigns."

Layered on top of that is a broader, more existential complaint from players who've followed the series for years. "After numerous releases of Kingdom Rush over 10+ years, it's quite disappointing to see the lack of innovation," one review states. Another, more bluntly: "99% of all games in this series is copy and paste." One long-time fan's review carries a title that sums up the tone across much of the negative sample: "A Disappointing Sequel." These aren't complaints about a badly made game — they're complaints from people who clearly know the franchise well and feel this specific entry doesn't earn its place in a series they've valued for a long time.

A handful of more concrete design complaints round out the picture. Several reviewers describe specific towers and heroes as underpowered or close to useless for large stretches of the campaign, undermining the roster variety the series is known for. A "tower delete" mechanic tied to certain boss encounters — where a heavily-upgraded tower can be wiped out entirely — draws particular frustration, with one reviewer calling for the series to "stop with the tower delete mechanic" after losing gold-intensive investments to a single hit. And a smaller but telling complaint: the in-game encyclopedia present in earlier Kingdom Rush titles is reportedly missing here, forcing players to search externally for information the series has traditionally surfaced in-game.

Weighing the two pictures

Both things can be true at once, and the review sample makes a genuinely good case for that reading: Alliance TD is a competently made, accessible tower defense game that will land well with players new to the series or without deep expectations shaped by a decade of prior entries, and simultaneously a specific letdown for the franchise's most invested fans, who have real, detailed reasons for feeling that way rather than reflexive nostalgia. The aggregate 88% positive score reflects the first group more than the second, and it's worth reading the negative sample directly rather than assuming an 88% score means there's nothing substantive to it.

Where this leaves a buyer

At NZ$28.99 for a roughly seven-hour main campaign, with three additional campaigns sold separately at NZ$7.39 each, the full Alliance TD experience runs meaningfully more than the base price suggests — worth factoring into a purchase decision up front rather than discovering after finishing the included content. Newcomers to Kingdom Rush, or fans who haven't tired of the format, will likely find a well-made, accessible tower defense game here. Long-time series veterans specifically hoping this entry pushes the fifteen-year-old formula somewhere new should read the "worst installment" reviews carefully before buying — on the evidence of the review sample, that specific disappointment is a real and recurring pattern, not an outlier.