With Menace, a new game from Germany has been released, which apparently aims to force you to think hard. As a mix of strategy and role-playing game, the spiritual successor to Battle Brothers relies on complex mechanics and tricky battles. Players have a clear opinion on Steam.
What kind of game is this?
- You command a group of elite soldiers, mercenaries, and criminals in Menace, who must survive against space pirates and mega-corporations in the outer areas of the galaxy.
- The game mechanics are similar to XCOM: you control your units individually on a grid field, use cover, and fight in rounds against your enemies. There is permadeath: if a unit or a leader dies, they stay dead.
- Menace launched in Early Access on Steam on February 5th and is developed by Overhype Studios from Hamburg. The studio previously created the tactical role-playing game “Battle Brothers,” which even HandOfBlood fell in love with.
This is what makes Menace special: At its core, Menace is a classic turn-based strategy game or more specifically, a tactical role-playing game. You assemble a team and complete missions one after the other, which tell a rough story.
Even though the gameplay may sound simple, the catch in Menace lies in the details. Instead of playing with actions – as may be familiar from XCOM – your units have action points that they can distribute each round.
With mechanics like suppression (through suppressive fire) and morale, the dynamics in battle change and require or allow for completely new strategies. Menace has even more in store:
- Every projectile is a physical object, can hit, ricochet or injure cover and even your own units.
- You assemble your team anew each time and have a pool of points for selection. Options include vehicles, infantry with various weapons, mechs, and more.
- Preparation is key: If you go on a mission without armor-piercing ammunition and encounter vehicles, you can hardly win.
- Many weapons and units are customizable, and the black market offers new equipment from different factions.
Unlike Battle Brothers, Menace plays in a dark space setting that greatly resembles Warhammer 40,000 in tone, but with not quite as absurd scaling. A true 40k alternative would probably be the successful Chaos Gate: Daemonhunters.
Menace costs 39.99 euros by default. However, at release, you can get it with a 25% discount. Until February 19, you only pay 29.99 euros.
One of the most challenging tactical experiences in recent years
On Steam, Menace currently has 86% positive reviews from 3,149 ratings (as of February 9, 11:57 AM). In particular, the scope that is already offered in Early Access brings a lot of joy among players. They have enough options and much to do.
The individual missions may become repetitive over time, but at least they are pleasantly short, allowing you to easily fit one or two rounds in your evening. Our colleagues from GameStar have a more detailed review of Menace. They say:
The greatest strength of Menace lies in the depth of the combat simulation: every projectile exists as a physical object in the game world, and missed shots have consequences. They destroy cover or hit units behind them – friend and foe alike. […]
Great praise goes to the scope: even in Early Access, the game almost overwhelms you with its variety of weapons, armors, and vehicle mods. You can spend hours tinkering on the black market to optimize your troops with passive bonuses and new toys.
At the same time, you must also upgrade the ship itself. For completing missions, you receive rare OCI components. These tech parts are essential to improve the Impetus’s systems – for example, for a more efficient sickbay to get wounded squad leaders back on their feet faster, or active weapons like missile strikes that you can trigger once per mission.
Dennis Zirkler on GameStar
Criticism has, meanwhile, mainly focused on transparency. With all the complexity, Menace lacks a good “onboarding”. The tutorial does not explain enough and, as GameStar criticizes, the game even lies directly at times. Some of these are bugs, while the devs likely need to polish further, but: “If you loved Battle Brothers and are willing to grind through clunky menus, you will already find one of the most challenging tactical experiences in recent years here.”
If Menace isn’t dark enough for you and you want to dive deeper into the world of Warhammer 40,000, you’ll soon have a new strategy game in the Grimdark universe with Dawn of War 4 – and also from Germany: Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War comes from Germany, and the developers know exactly what strategy fans want
