Battle Brothers developer Overhype Studios has taken its love of tricky tactical scraps into the far-flung future. Menace, unveiled earlier this year, gives players control over a strike force of Republic Marines as they attempt to unify a star system to fight off an alien threat. In its PC Gaming Show: Most Wanted trailer, we see a brisk, chilly fight in a snow biome, where artillery proves to be quite handy.
While the switch to 3D and sci-fi sets Menace apart from Battle Brothers, this is still a gloomy sandbox where the odds are stacked against you as you pick what battles to fight in, equip your desperate forces—which will, over time, expand from just marines to include mercenaries and criminals—and hope that your next engagement won’t cost you an entire squad.
Bad weather, the threat of superior technology and mid-battle errors in judgement can cost you a lot, and you’ll need to pick the right equipment for the job. Got some foes hunkered down next to a troop transport? Blast them with artillery. You’ll need to take advantage of flanking manoeuvres, pincer attacks, suppression and cover, and flush enemies out from their defensible positions.
To make the fight to unite the system a bit easier, you’ll have powerful mechs and tanks at your disposal, but these things cost resources, which you might decide would be better spent on improving your squad’s equipment. What you have access to and how you approach missions will also depend on what you’ve done before that point. Develop relationships with different groups and you’ll benefit from the gear they can sell you or support they can provide.
Each battle is part of a branching operation where you’ll be forced to make tough strategic decisions, like playing it safe and taking out enemy anti-air defences so you can drop in the big guns, or taking the risk to drop in a smaller force so they can save some hostages in time. And these operations are procedurally generated, so hopefully each run will offer something a bit different.
This is ticking a lot of boxes for me, and all the emergent story stuff and interlocking systems have piqued my interest even during a time when there’s hardly a dearth of tactical romps. Menace doesn’t have a release date yet, but it’s due out in 2024.