Incline MENACE - sci-fi turn-based tactical RPG from Battle Brothers devs

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

From discord:

Hey, we came back from Gamescom on Saturday and did a lot of Press interviews where we played through an actual mission of the game. The Embargo should run until Wednesday so you can expect the info to come out then!

 

[ArchAngel]

I'm not feeling it

Then you should hire a black guy to fuck you next time.

 

[Reinhardt]

i'm just not into scifi. at least make it horror or something.

 

[Parsimonious cook]

Nigga have you seen the trailer? There are some horror style enemies (even something like 40K servitors).

Anyway, cant wait for this to drop.

 

[Reinhardt]

yes, there was, but it was when? 3 years ago?

 

[The Wall]

I'm not feeling it

Portraits of soldiers will tell us everything. If it's row of niggerz in space, row of stronk hwhite women and one confused, lonely, Rogueysexual white male => into the trash bin. Zero mercy to the WOKE. Ain't got time for WOKE shit

So far it's been wrapped up enigma. Unwrapping is soon[...]

 

[TheKing01]

Meh, looks like an extremely poor man's Wartales.

Nice to see them finally upgrading from 2D.

 

[geno]

​

It’s been quiet around the turn-based tactical RPG from Battle Brothers developer Overhype Studios for a while now, but rest assured: The team spent all this time wisely and Menace is shaping up to be a real treat for genre fans. After chatting to the founders of Overhype about Menace’s Battle Brothers DNA last year at Gamescom, I had the opportunity to sit down with them at this year’s trade fair once more to see the project’s progress firsthand.
I’d urge you to read last year’s piece for a more thorough overview of what Menace is, but to quickly sum it up: It’s a spiritual successor to Battle Brothers, a mercenary sim set in a sci-fi universe that will have you build up a strong military force and interact with different factions present in the solar system you’ve arrived in – but aside from fellow humans, a much darker threat looms on the horizon. Menace combines crisp, turn-based tactical combat with some strategic decision-making and character management on the sector map.
Brothers Paul and Jan Taaks of Overhype tell me that since last year there has been progress in pretty much every area of the game, and the small team has begun working on the final UI recently with the help of a freelance artist who comes with fantastic space game credentials – work on Stellaris, among other titles.
Concepts for the sector map show different types of planets – and in Star Wars-fashion, each world is dedicated to one type of environment. “We had the idea to have multiple biomes on one planet, but it was mushing up their identity, so we went with the classic desert planet, ice planet, and so on,” the Taaks explain. “It doesn’t make any sense, but it’s very good for each planet’s identity, so that you know which world you’re currently on.”
That doesn’t mean monotony, though: There will still be different types of environments on these worlds. Deserts, for example, can be rocky or sandy and may have some vegetation as well – not to speak of potential oases that can serve as battlegrounds.

Even mechs can be sneaky, given the right cover. / Overhype Studios / Hooded Horse
As we touched on last year, each planet will be inhabited by a different faction – and friendship isn’t exactly the way of being in the Wayback System. Naturally, that’s good news for you: The distrust and hostility between everyone means that the mercenary business will be booming. However, you’ll need to be careful in selecting your missions: You’ll be pulled into the sector’s politics one way or another, so choose wisely who to make allies and enemies with.
Increasing your standing with a faction allows you to access their technology and equipment, in turn, influencing your playstyle for this campaign – it’s this element that will give different runs of Menace their unique flavor. You can’t get all the upgrades from all the factions, because of the simple reason that you can’t please everyone.
“On the star map we’ll have a bit of a role-playing element in the form of events. Factions leaders will contact you and sometimes ask you to do an operation for them or they’ll ask favors of you, such as smuggling a spy to a certain planet,” they describe. There will also be internal events for you to deal with as your ship’s commander. All of these happenings – and your reactions to them – will have consequences. Some of these are political, others affect your soldiers in the form of emotional states.
Your squad leaders can become disgruntled, overconfident, high-spirited, and so on as a result of your event choices, but also if what transpires during combat. The brothers show me a battle during which one of the squad leaders gets downed and her unit wiped out. The squad leaders don’t die immediately and can be stabilized inside a time limit, allowing you to keep them alive – if you don’t reach them in time, though, they are gone for good. In this case, the character made it through. However, because she was saved by a squad leader she doesn’t like, she gained the disgruntled state, while her savior – a former pirate – became overconfident. These emotional states have positive and negative effects, but most importantly they reflect your decisions, your journey, and the relationships between your characters – and that’s one of the big targets the brothers set themselves for Menace, as opposed to Battle Brothers’ shallower interactions.
You’ll also have access to a resource called Authority, which you can use to “buy your way out of events” sometimes, as the Taaks put it.
“It’s this Frostpunk-style decision-making,” they tell me. “It’s there to loosen up the game and tell some more stories between the tactical combats.”

Every faction in Menace has their own personality, behavior, and equipment. / Overhype Studios / Hooded Horse
Speaking of combat: As you may remember from last year, battles happen as part of operations, which essentially are self-contained military campaigns that will reward you for completing them. What’s special about Menace is that you need to fight an entire operation (so a series of battles) with the same persistent force you assemble specifically for it. That means you need to be as efficient as possible with your forces and avoid any losses, since you may run out of steam for the last stretch of the campaign otherwise.
Upgrading your ship with better sensors provides crucial information about what kind of forces you’ll face and where they are positioned before you embark your troops. This entire part of the game – from embarking your forces to the nitty-gritty details of the battle mechanics – is heavily inspired by tabletop wargames like Warhammer 40,000 and Star Wars: Legion.
Each soldier, vehicle, and piece of equipment you have in your arsenal is associated with a points cost and you’ll have a set pool of points for an operation, so you’re completely free in the way you customize your army for every campaign. Your squad leaders typically lead a handful of troops into battle or serve as pilots for tanks and mechs. Their armaments and armor are all up to you to decide from whatever you’ve gathered on your journey. Squads can also bring auxiliary equipment like combat drugs to reduce suppression, smoke grenades to obscure the line of sight, or single-use rocket launchers for some anti-armor capabilities.
Though the brothers think this concept is very important to the game, they make it clear that “nothing is sacred” when the game launches in Early Access and that the team is “ready to question everything” in case surprising drawbacks are discovered.
“I can still imagine that this is one of the concepts that might get canceled. I have a bit of a feeling that maybe it’s the wrong road we’re taking, but I think it works very well at the moment,” Paul Taak says.
The developers say that the points system gives them a lot of freedom since they can come up with the wildest ideas for items and simply put them into the game with appropriately high points costs.

Meet the dreaded space pick-up truck with a mounted rocket launcher battery. / Overhype Studios / Hooded Horse
“A big problem in Battle Brothers for us was that in the later game it was impossible to make light armor viable, because it was just worse,” they say. “With this system, there is still an incentive to make, say, a squad that just has a grenade launcher, because if they stay out of sight and don’t get shot, they don’t need armor, and you can save those points to invest into something else.”
Weapons themselves have stats that are as detailed as you’d find them in first-person shooters with values like damage drop-off over distance, armor penetration, and so on. “Some people are already speculating that the game will be more streamlined or dumbed down because we use 3D graphics now, but that’s not the case. I think it’s even more complex than Battle Brothers because you have a lot more viable equipment choices for your squads,” they explain.
What stands out about Menace, even in this stage of development, is the attention to detail. The game tracks the ammunition count of special weapons for your forces as well as the enemy, so there’s another element of attrition in play that will deplete a squad’s effectiveness over time.
Though you’ll likely play from a top-down view most of the time, you can closely zoom into the action and see that each soldier has their own idle animations. When you select a unit and then move your cursor into different directions to aim at enemies or place a movement order, those troops will actively turn and mimic the direction of your cursor. Troops will banter among each other or call out enemies in close proximity. The pirate faction’s troops get really whiny when the tide of battle turns against them. Sneaking units that haven’t been discovered will whisper to each other in hushed tones. The Hamburg-based developers went with the British studio that worked on games like The Witcher to record all the voice acting in their game, and that seems to have paid off – there is lots of personality in the unit barks.
Combat has a lot of depth to offer and features cover, morale, and suppression systems. Units that lose troops will begin to waver and may rout like in a Total War game, only to recover a bit later and rejoin the fight. Instead of showing hard hit chances like XCOM, Menace currently uses a color-coded system to show the expected effectiveness of an attack, which takes into account everything from hit chance to distance – however, this only accounts for damage. Even shots going wide will build up suppression on the enemy, which forces the unit to hunker down and may even stun it for a round. As long as you get a shot out (not a given, since guns can get jammed), there will be some sort of effect.

Vehicles have directional armor values and can suffer modular destruction. / Overhype Studios / Hooded Horse
Vehicles have damage tables, which get rolled when they hit certain health thresholds and determine which of their modules get destroyed – or other fun effects. There is a flamethrower truck in the game that may get leaky when damaged, leading it to spread burning napalm over the battlefield as it drives around. They also feature different armor values on different sides, not unlike games such as Company of Heroes.
Cover and line-of-sight are massive components of combat – in the battle I see, the player doesn’t scout ahead properly and puts their tank into a terrible position, as nearby enemies reveal themselves to be RPG-carrying infantry squads. Flanking maneuvers seem to be absolutely devastating with some infantry squads getting wiped out quickly if they make one wrong step.
A lot of the smaller buildings provide cover despite units behind them being able to be targeted. “This is something we spent a long time experimenting on,” the brothers say. Having the line of sight blocked even by small obstacles brought the game to a standstill, so now units can see – and shoot – through assets like small buildings. It’s another solution that feels very tabletop.
Though it’s complex and deep, Menace goes by the rule of common sense to keep things manageable. “Even though the game is super complex, you can still just use what you think makes sense, like a rocket launcher against a tank, a machine gun against infantry, and you can see the color of the targeting ray, and it’ll work out like you’d expect it to,” they break it down.
Menace will feature varied mission types from straightforward “destroy the enemy base” battles to escort and extraction missions.
Another key feature of the game is its use of alternating turns: You get a move, the enemy gets a move – order of action is crucial. “I think that’s one of the things people will have to get used to the most. It’s very different from basically turn-based games except maybe for chess,” Jan Taak explains. “This allows us to get around Overwatch [the XCOM ability, not the game] and also makes what would otherwise be a pretty static game more dynamic, because it feels much more action-oriented with the back and forth.”
“The main ability you have to have in the game is to decide which unit to move first – it’s the most crucial skill,” he emphasizes. They report that even the test scenario they showed off at Gamescom throughout the week had vastly different results based on the action order.
Winning a mission is not everything – the game will actually rate your performance in each battle and reward you with promotion points based on that result, so being efficient pays off in more than one way. These promotion points can be used to unlock new skills for your characters and are universal – there are no separate XP values for each squad leader: “It’s kind of like XP, but you decide who gets it.”
Every character has a unique skill tree to fill out, providing them with various playstyles – the Taaks are not big fans of locking characters into one specific role.
In general, Menace’s setting feels pretty grounded as far as sci-fi goes. All enemy factions will have their distinct traits – which even influence how the AI plays them in battle –, but they remain human at their core, just like your army. This is a deliberate choice to make the eventual impact of the titular alien menace, which comes into play at some point during a run, all the greater.
The Taaks show me some concept art for this antagonist faction and appropriately describe it as “‘80s body-horror” inspired by movies like The Thing. They envision them moving like old-school animatronics – in a spooky, unnatural manner.
“We start with very simple units, basically like zombies, but as the game goes on they will get bigger and more complex. There will be boss menace monsters as well, which will be very large and have lots of skills” they state. Unlike the human factions, the menace might have access to supernatural abilities like “force fields, teleportation, and regeneration.”
As a tabletop wargamer myself, Menace sounds like the greatest digital sandbox I could think of.
Overhype Studios and Hooded Horse were not ready to share any details regarding the Early Access launch of Menace on PC yet, but we’ll be sure to keep you posted as soon as anything emerges.

 

[Strange Fellow]

This is gonna be gud

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

From discord:

Marco is a really cool guy, the article contains a lot of info so check it out : ) Some minor inaccuracies though but nothing crucial

Yeah, thats the inaccuracy I was talking about, your not really a mercenary in this one ; )

There will be mercenary characters though that might join you

hehe in MENACE we have lots of "conglomerate" attacks, that might be 4 squadmembers each shooting 3 times in a single attack. That is 12 shots that might hit or not hit individually so a pure hit chance is not that helpful in many cases

We wanted to have more planets to be able to have more factions and separate them more clearly. Also, the menace will spread through the system corrupting and "destroying" planets so more planets means a bigger battlefield against the big bad

So unlike chess you can move each unit once per "round". The side with more units has an advantage through this. Figuring out the turn order opens up a lot of possibilities to actually outplay the enemy. I think this is where players will increase their "skill" the most while learning the game

 

[Iluvcheezcake]

This gonna be gud :]

 

[Bastardchops]

Meh, looks like an extremely poor man's Wartales.

Nice to see them finally upgrading from 2D.

If it's anything like Battle Brothers it will be 10x better than Wartales in terms of party building and tactics.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

More from discord:

That is actually already in the game, units keep engaging their last target with reduced frequency and a "distant shooting" soundeffect. This is mostly used for Squadweapons and suppressive weapons. We have toned it down a bit now because it may confuse players as to what is actually going on but we will dial it in to keep the battlefield alive while players plan their next move.

Regarding the dropship deployment limit: There is both supply limits and also Squad Limits. Both can be increased through Ship Upgrades that we call OCIs (Operational Capability Increase). Unlocking ship upgrades and deciding which ones to build and how many of each will be a core part of your strategy for that playthrough

Regarding the APCs: The IFV in the screens can also transport a squad. There are various variations of the vehicle and others that can also ferry troops. The maps are decently sized so moving squads through fields of fire safely or advance quickly to capture points can be essential. Squads in vehicles are immune to small arms, fragmentation and suppression so they are basically protectect from all infantry threats.

The pirates on the attack will have ALL their infantry on open trucks and rush the player. You will see how effective that is ^^

Each Squad has a Squadweapon that every member carries. They can not go without one. This can be an SMG, assault rifle, Battle Rifle or others. Additionally, a squad can swap one of these for a single special weapon. Those are a lot more powerful, have limited ammo and have special skills. This can be MGs, Rocket Launchers, Mortars and loads of others

We will see if and how we keep and adjust those limits. We want meaningful decisions on all levels of gameplay but if it turns out to be redundand we will cut it

We actually had individual supply types at one point: Ammo, Fuel, Energy cells and so on

It turned out that this was just overcomplicating things without any realy benefit other than maybe immersion so we condensed that into the general supply limit

We have been very careful of having too many meta ressources that players can accumulate. For example money in BB where good players rather quickly got to a point where money did not matter anymore at all. This then takes out one of the main restrictions or constraints of the game and all the decisions connected to it. On the other hand, newer players quickly got in a situation where they suffered losses, earned less money and then had no money to recover from those losses. These resources snowball really quickly in both directions,

There will be a black market for getting rid of and acquiring new items but not a classical "space bucks" currency

The supply points can be viewed as the amount of work it takes to keep items and vehicles combat ready: Maintenance, new energy cells, ammo, repairs, fuel, wear and tear, ferrying it to the ground and so on. All these logistics connected to employ weapons in combat and keeping them in good condition. Technologically advanced items like experimental plasma rifles of course require a lot more care and work than a metal printed carbine thats mass produced

Right now it is more akin to a bartering economy similar to Against the Storm (btw. you have to play that game if you havent so far, its amazing )

 

[thesecret1]

“A big problem in Battle Brothers for us was that in the later game it was impossible to make light armor viable, because it was just worse,” they say. “With this system, there is still an incentive to make, say, a squad that just has a grenade launcher, because if they stay out of sight and don’t get shot, they don’t need armor, and you can save those points to invest into something else.”

Why is light armor not being viable a problem? It indeed is just worse - an early game item you get rid off as soon as you can get something better.

 

[Vincente]

“A big problem in Battle Brothers for us was that in the later game it was impossible to make light armor viable, because it was just worse,” they say. “With this system, there is still an incentive to make, say, a squad that just has a grenade launcher, because if they stay out of sight and don’t get shot, they don’t need armor, and you can save those points to invest into something else.”

Why is light armor not being viable a problem? It indeed is just worse - an early game item you get rid off as soon as you can get something better.

Player options. Nimble is cool and lightly armored swordmasters dex-ing around the battlefield is fun. The REAL thing they lacked was a set of perks for medium tier armor IMO, you either went light armor - nimble - max hp, or heaviest clunk of steel - battleforged - max fatigue, nothing inbetween.

 

[thesecret1]

“A big problem in Battle Brothers for us was that in the later game it was impossible to make light armor viable, because it was just worse,” they say. “With this system, there is still an incentive to make, say, a squad that just has a grenade launcher, because if they stay out of sight and don’t get shot, they don’t need armor, and you can save those points to invest into something else.”

Why is light armor not being viable a problem? It indeed is just worse - an early game item you get rid off as soon as you can get something better.

Player options. Nimble is cool and lightly armored swordmasters dex-ing around the battlefield is fun. The REAL thing they lacked was a set of perks for medium tier armor IMO, you either went light armor - nimble - max hp, or heaviest clunk of steel - battleforged - max fatigue, nothing inbetween.

Right, but that's not what they're saying. If it were equal worth player options, then the argument about point limits making light armor viable wouldn't make sense - if light armor is a player choice of equal worth, then it should cost exactly as many points as heavy armor. Having it cost less implies that it's inherently shittier, at which point it becomes less of a choice and more of a declaration by developer along the lines of "Yes, we know it's worse, but we want you to play it anyway because fuck you."

 

[Infinitron]

A comparison the Codex will love: https://www.gamesradar.com/menace-preview-august-2024/

This turn-based game looks like tactical Mass Effect, and it's all down to the"light RPG" mechanics​

Gamescom 2024 |I don't even play turn-based tactics games, but I'm sold on Menace already

(Image credit: Hooded Horse)

A guy in a mech suit charges forward and swiftly obliterates a swathe of masked enemies. All it takes is a spray of bullets. As Overhype Studios creative director Paul Taaks zooms in a little closer for me to admire the carnage he's carving out in Menace, I let out a whoop of delight. The smoking corpses of the enemy forces sit in a satisfying heap, and as he zooms back out to initiate a tactical airstrike on another band of ne'er-do-wells in the center of the map, I sit back to enjoy the show.

At first glance, Menace is not the kind of game you'd associate with one of the best RPGs of all time. Yet somehow, something about how Taaks is pitching it leaves me shouting three words: tactical Mass Effect. Paired with the fact that Menace is taking a slightly more narrative approach to the turn-based tactics proceedings than in the developer's wildly popular Battle Brothers, this pivot toward something familiar is effortlessly selling me on a whole new genre.

No man's land​

Decisions, you say? Light roleplay elements, you say? I'm the commander of a naval fleet, out to build alliances, develop a rapport with my crew, and ultimately become the savior the galaxy has always needed, you say? I'm talking about Menace here, not Mass Effect. Though really, I think it's okay if you don't believe me.

Taaks explains the overall style and shape of a typical Menace playthrough to me as we hang out in a hotel suite, a welcome oasis mere feet away from the comparatively heaving Kolnmesse, and it's clear that it's still very much a turn-based tactical combat game. Much as in Battle Brothers, strategy is king in Menace, with the "light-RPG" story elements playing more of a supporting role.

Still, the fact that they are there at all is what makes me lean in that much closer to the TV screen. There's a political framework underpinning Menace, Taaks explains of the player character's incentive to get involved with the galaxy's myriad factions and militarily subdivisions at all. Choosing alliances wisely is crucial, he says, as is balancing how you spend utility points to upgrade your ship: the grand TCRN Impetus, kitted out with enough guns, rockets, and medbays to rival the Normandy by quite a mile. There are NPC relationships to monitor and watch blossom (or collapse, if one of your squad leaders dies in action), and hanging out with your crew to have a post-mission beer in the officer's mess is on the cards, too. He even lets on how Overhype is taking inspiration from the 1984 Terminator movie when it comes to the frankly too-sick-to-be-true "mech zombies" that players will be battling. Tick, tick, and another tick in my books.

(Image credit: Hooded Horse)

I hoped to to see these bad brutes in action when we step into a combat encounter, but alas, I'm met with some militarily foes in their army gear. No matter, because this forested battleground is about to be ours. As Taaks sets up the field, explaining some basic tactical approaches he'll be taking, he reinforces the studio's interest in keeping the game accessible to new players as well as tactical-RPG vets. From tutorials to ship modules earned by gaining the trust of various factions, it's clear that Menace wants to facilitate players to enjoy the game on their own terms.

Your chosen ship build influences everything out on the field, from how fast your squad leaders heal up by prioritizing medical facilities to sheer brute force if you're a firm believer in offense being the best defense. Taaks walks me through everything he does on-screen and what it means for players, from staying hidden until an opportune moment to how heavy losses or jubilant victories affect the crew themselves. We come away from the battle fairly unscathed, thanks to Taaks' skilled strategic mastery, resulting in an Overconfident mech driver who will be taking increased damage as a trade-off for dealing just as much extra damage in the next battle.

I never thought I'd say it about tactical RPGs, but I'm kind of definitely hooked. Already, Menace is checking a great many boxes for me – and I'm not even a turn-based tactics gamer. With the game set to launch into early access, hopefully soon in the not-too distant future, I'm already thinking about putting a tactical spin on roleplaying when I sit down to my first campaign. And yes, I'll be calling myself Commander Shepard and pretending the end of Mass Effect 3 never happened.

 

[Reinhardt]

is being retarded drooling mongoloid mandatory trait to get game journo job?
don't need to answer.

 

[Tomas]

So far getting positive vibes, from the trailer as well as the article. But yeah it is still early days lets see how EA plays.

 

[ropetight]

I never thought I'd say it about tactical RPGs, but I'm kind of definitely hooked.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

 

[Alienman]

The visuals sure are nice. I like that they took a semi realistic approach, instead of making it cartoony. Cool ragdolls as well, didn't expect that. Something I really missed from JA3.

 

[Sweeper]

Portraits of soldiers will tell us everything.

Now, now, we all know the quality of a game can most easily be seen in the UI and inventory.
If the UI and inventory don't look autistic as fuck, it ain't a good game.
Speaking of which, where the fuck is they for this MENACE thing?

 

[ropetight]

The visuals sure are nice. I like that they took a semi realistic approach, instead of making it cartoony. Cool ragdolls as well, didn't expect that. Something I really missed from JA3.

Starting to like it more and more.
Like the limited points for equipping units for campaigns and promotion system - it reminds me of... Panzer General?
I'm cautiously optimistic.

 

[ropetight]

something about their positioning made me think he's sitting on the bald guy's knee

And a general from the game watches them with a scorn.