In case you’re new to this timeline, Into The Breach is basically Pacific Rim Chess. Each board is a series of perfectly devilish puzzles to untangle with your lance, daring you to defend cities, trains, launch sites, and ancient weapons against swarms of massive bugs. Every foe acts predictably, all the cards are on the table - it’s you’re job to stack them in your favour.
“There are those games whose technology or setpieces or storytelling I thrill to,” Alec (RPS in peace) remarked in his Into The Breach review. “Then there are the games where I marvel, most of all, at the elegance of the design, the remarkable precision at which so many interlocking gears are arranged, particularly in something as breezily-executed as Into The Breach. The Spelunkies, the Slay The Spires and, of course, the FTLs. Into The Breach effortlessly joins those ranks, instantly feeling ageless and ingenious, a collecting of long-known designs honed to a glorious sheen.” Oh, but we do love us a bit of Into The Breach here. It’s still one of our fave strategy games after all, and has some of the stompiest mechs in games if list-goblin Brendy’s to be believed. Fellow RPS departee Adam Smith grilled the devs on how the game hurts your feelings in all the right places back at Rezzed 2018, and the pressures of following up FTL’s breakout success. Into The Breach can be picked up for free, over on the Epic Games Store, and will remain free until next Thursday - at which point it’ll be replaced by Railway Empire and folksy walk n’ talk Where The Water Tastes Like Wine.
