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Watch trailer on Steam ↗Buzz Wars
DrunkenTurnip · Published by DrunkenTurnip
7 achievements
Last updated 28 Sept 2026
Buzz Wars is a wasp and bee themed strategy and fighting game with multiple playable units, various paths to win and multiple maps. Face off against other players in the multiplayer mode, or compete with AI opponents. Find your strategy - are you more a builder, a fighter or both?
£3.39
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Price history
Action, Indie, Simulation, Strategy · 2025 · More under £5 games
Explore Buzz Wars, a thrilling mix of action and strategy where you command buzzing warriors across diverse maps. Choose your path as a builder or fighter, or both, in this wasp and bee-themed battle for dominance.
About this game
BUZZ WARS is a wasp-and-bee themed RTS game with single player combat elements. Play solo or join online multiplayer matches.
Players fight, build hives and accumulate points as the hives produce queens - provided the hives are fed enough resources. There's also a first person mode where players can control and command individual units.
-UPDATE 25/06/2026: SOME PLAYERS HAVE DETECTED A POSSIBLE ISSUE ON THE MAP SELECT SCREEN WHERE,
IF THE HOST SUGGEST A MAP BEFORE EVERYONE HAS JOINED THE SESSION, SOME PLAYERS MIGHT NOT GET THE OPTION TO CONFIRM THE MAP CHOICE. IF THIS HAPPENS, THE HOST JUST HAS TO DECLINE THE MAP SELECTION AND SUGGEST A MAP AGAIN (EVEN THE SAME ONE)-
The in-game resources are pollen and meat, which can be gotten passively as friendly units fly between pollen nodes, or by killing enemy units in the case of the meat resource.
Players can possess individual to fight enemies, and direct nearby allies to attack via pheromones. A key feature of this game is hive raiding, where players can fly into enemy hives and kill enemy larvae before they develop into adults. Hives are defended by drones, the larvae themselves and potentially enemy players.
BUZZ WARS features 4 different maps with different distributions of resources and hive placements. 6 playable units each have different strengths, weaknesses and resource costs, and even counter each other in different ways. Some units are intended more for early game and others for late game but players can only choose 3 unit types per game, without knowledge of opponents' picks.
Matches last 15 minutes and the winner is whoever has the most points at the end. Get fighting!
CONTROLS:
In First Person Mode:
-Click and point with the mouse to move
-Z to sting
-Press SHIFT for a quick burst of speed. You have three uses of this, but they recharge.
-X to bite (you can move while doing so)
-W to target or detarget, and Q and E to cycle left and right to new targets. Press C to launch pheromones at targets, causing nearby allies to swarm them.
-V to use your unit's special ability (other than the bumblebee).
-(Bumblebee only) A and D to strafe left and right.
In Building Mode:
-Interaction is mostly with the mouse and the game UI elements.
-The 'build hives' panel brings up a list of your chosen unit types when clicked. Click on these icons to see unbuilt hives of the selected type in the level, marked with arrows. Hover over these and click or press T to build a hive of that type. You need to have a nearby queen who isn't already leading her own hive to do this! The number at the bottom of each panel is the number of available queens you have.
-If you run out of queens, there is a 'forfeit' button that spawns a hive and an owning queen of your choosing. This has a cooldown, and it costs points (varying per unit). It can be tactically useful in a bad spot.
-ESC to pause.
-You can manually select what units you want to control as an alternative to using numbers 0 - 3, using the 'control units' panel.
General:
-Press G to swap out of first person mode, into building mode.
-Press the 1, 2 and 3 keys (or on your numpad with numlock enabled) to select what type of unit you want to control. Then press P to actually swap to the nearest unit of that type, if there are any nearby. If you just want to control the closest unit, press the 0 key. Your preferred unit will be displayed in the top right. In building mode, you can also change your preferred unit via another menu on the bottom left.
-Fly into the black holes (entrances) most hives have to enter them. Here you can fight enemy larvae before they become adults, but watch out - they bite. Older hives are also guarded by drones! Fly out of the hole again to return to the main game.
TIPS:
-All poison in this game applies a slowing effect, partially removed by sprinting with SHIFT.
-Some units are designed to counter others. For example, wasps have faster acting (but not stronger) poison, which is strong against the banded hornet's 'shield' special, which is removed via instances of damage. Grubs and drones in hives have no such ability, making the banded hornet a very good hive raider with high resistance to slow-occurring damage.
-Some units are very strong, like the giant hornet, but have a very high meat cost, which is difficult to meet until the late game.
System Requirements
Will my PC run this? →Minimum
- Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
- OS: Windows 10
- Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4670K CPU @ 3.40GHz 3.40 GHz
- Memory: 2 GB RAM
- Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970
- DirectX: Version 11
- VR Support: N/A
Recommended
- Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
Supported Languages
*languages with full audio support
Latest news
AnnouncementsOfficial
Achievements, style changes and more
Since release, I've made a few big changes to Buzz Wars and will continue to do so at least in the short term. -Seven new achievements have been added, with the possibility of a few more. -The UI has been updated to (in my view) more accurately represent player scores. Also added a fire effect to indicate the leading player/bot opponent.-Updated the environment in some of the levels.-Changed the in-game strategy mode music.-Fixed several minor and less minor bugs, eg minigame controls freezing on restarting the minigame.-Changed the targetting system to display clearly to players what unit they will possess if they press the possess command (yellow markers show what nearby wasps are available).-Changed the 'pheromone attack' targetting reticle.-Several other artistic changes, eg hives now have a notable red glow inside. Trees and cacti now fade out when the player is looking at them or near them, so that players can see the hives on them more easily. Insect blood sprays and the 'spit' attack have updated visuals. As always I'm very thankful to anyone playing and there is a possibility for further changes and improvements down the line.Read full article on Community Announcements (DrunkenTurnip)Patch NotesOfficial
Small Update
-Added a volume slider to the main menu screen (players can also control volume via in game pause menu)-Fixed a bug causing players to not leave hives properly if they were already occupied by other players when they went in-Fixed problems with hive entry and exit in high ping situations-Slightly updated the tutorial, players can now cycle through the hints with F. Fixed unit possession in the tutorial to better match the main game and updated some of the text.Read full article on Community Announcements (DrunkenTurnip)AnnouncementsOfficial
First day of full launch!
I'm happy to announce BUZZ WARS is finally out! Take to the skies, bite, sting and outmanoeuvre your opponents. Players can opt in to multiplayer mode by hosting sessions or joining those created by others. If you aren't feeling it, head off vs AI in the single player mode. I appreciate anybody who has shown, is showing or will show interest in this project.Read full article on Community Announcements (DrunkenTurnip)AnnouncementsOfficial
Last day of playtest and going forward with the main release
BUZZ WARS is set to deliver a sting in 5 days! All good things come to and end and in preparation for release on November 28th I'll be disabling the free playtest of the game. I did have some content to patch in the playtest that I wanted people to see, but unfortunately due to an issue with the authenticator I was locked out of updating over the weekend - rest assured the changes will be in BUZZ WARS proper. I had some feedback that people wanted UI changes, so I'm set to work cleaning up the UI slightly. Some of the ingame effects are different; for example wasps turn red when they enrage now and check out the new speed boost visual effect (comes with new audio): AI units should feel a little less choppy now too, and I fixed a bug where the units would sometimes get stuck around flowers until something attacked them. I've added a discord link to the main menu for those interested in following the game and its progress. There will be more changes prior to launch, such as tuning the scoring and possibly rewarding points for player killed units. There's also a strong possibility of updates after launch, depending on initial reception.Read full article on Community Announcements (DrunkenTurnip)AnnouncementsOfficial
Release date finalized and playtest reopened
I'm well at work on polishing the game ready for a late November release. As such I've reopened the playtest so that hopefully more people will be encouraged to try Buzz Wars before it comes fully live. I've recently changed the lobby to include a minigame, since a concern of mine is that players became bored waiting to find matches. I'm toying with the idea of doing something similar for people who choose to host sessions as well.Read full article on Community Announcements (DrunkenTurnip)






