Tactical Breach Wizards

Tactical Breach Wizards is a 2024 turn-based tactics game from Suspicious Developments, the studio of Tom Francis, which made Gunpoint and Heat Signature. A squad of wizards in tactical gear, a police witch, a navy seer who can see a few seconds ahead, a necromedic and others, breach rooms and fight through a conspiracy.

Its fights are close-quarters puzzles in small rooms. Pushing enemies out of windows or into each other is the main way to win, and each turn can be undone and replayed for free, so the challenge is finding the best turn rather than surviving a bad one. The characters talk constantly and the writing is funny.

It is one of the best written tactics games ever made, with a cast whose banter carries a campaign. The free rewinds remove the frustration of a bad roll and replace it with the pleasure of a perfect turn.

There is no strategic layer and no permanent loss, so it is a different kind of game from the long campaigns in this list.

Tactical Breach Wizards is here for its cast. Like Jagged Alliance 2, it understands that a squad of characters who talk to each other, joke and argue makes a tactics game come alive. Its rules are elsewhere: free undo and puzzle rooms.