Into the Breach

Into the Breach is a 2018 turn-based tactics game from Subset Games, the two-person studio that made FTL. Giant insects called the Vek are rising from the ground to attack the last human cities. You control three mechs, sent back from a future where the war was lost, and fight on islands made of small eight-by-eight grids.

The key rule is that the enemy tells you what it will do. At the start of each turn every Vek shows the square it will attack, and you have one turn to deal with that, often by pushing an enemy so its attack hits another enemy or nothing at all. Buildings you fail to protect drain the power grid, and if it runs out the timeline is lost and one pilot escapes to try another.

It is a nearly perfect small game. Because there is no hidden information and almost no chance, every turn is a puzzle with a best answer, and finding it is deeply satisfying. A campaign takes an hour or two, so it is built to be played again with different mechs.

If you want a squad to grow attached to, or a campaign of weeks, this is not it. It is a game about moves, not about people.

Into the Breach keeps X-COM's small squad and turn-based fight and removes the uncertainty X-COM is famous for. Where X-COM hides the enemy in the dark and rolls dice on every shot, Into the Breach shows you everything and asks for the right answer. It is the opposite answer to the same question, and worth playing for that reason alone.