Incline MENACE - sci-fi turn-based tactical RPG from Battle Brothers devs - coming to Early Access on Q3 2025

[vota DC]

Battle Brothers is tacticool, which pretty much means "RPG with less of the boring shit, and more of the good shit".

Not really? From their own description of the game:

The original X-Com, Warhammer: Shadow of the Horned Rat and Jagged Alliance.

Sure, they use RPG elements and mercenaries are essentially characters (like in Jagged Alliance), but claiming that everything with RPG elements is a full-blooded RPG is a very dangerous thing to say.

But there is a definite difference between e.g. Jagged Alliance and Battle Brothers. JA has an overlying strategic layer that BB doesn't have. It's about advancing in territory, securing resources and deploying troops in a strategic manner across a map.

BB is about growing a group of mercs in a sandbox environment, grinding the heck out of offered quests and enemies. If you made BB into a blobber, it would be closer to Wizardzy than JA, and still work on an overall basis. The combat being actually good shouldn't be held against BB's RPG-ness. Now, the lack of a story arch, that's a different story. There's not many RPGs out there without a story, so I could live with that line of argument.

Also both Ja1 and Ja2 have fixed enemy while in BB you can work for a lord a day and against the day after.
Ja Deadly Games Is more similar. It lacks a map but every mission Is generated.

 

[Alienman]

I'd rather beg for that kind of money cent by cent on a street in Bangalore.

That's for the other million.

 

[Darth Canoli]

1M€ in government funding, in current Germany, it probably comes with strings attached.
Like half the mercs will be women, 25% turkish and 25% will be migrants heroes from all over Africa.

And the haircuts.
And some romance but only between mercs of the same gender.

I can't wait to see what it looks like, it's going to be fun.

 

[Reinhardt]

1M€ in government funding, in current Germany, it probably comes with strings attached.
Like half the mercs will be women, 25% turkish and 25% will be migrants heroes from all over Africa.

And the haircuts.
And some romance but only between mercs of the same gender.

I can't wait to see what it looks like, it's going to be fun.

so just like legends mod?

 

[Brancaleone]

1M€ in government funding, in current Germany, it probably comes with strings attached.
Like half the mercs will be women, 25% turkish and 25% will be migrants heroes from all over Africa.

And the haircuts.
And some romance but only between mercs of the same gender.

I can't wait to see what it looks like, it's going to be fun.

And crafting has to generate no CO2 whatsoever

 

[Harthwain]

But there is a definite difference between e.g. Jagged Alliance and Battle Brothers.

Certainly. After all Jagged Alliance is an inspiration, not a straightfoward copy.

The combat being actually good shouldn't be held against BB's RPG-ness. Now, the lack of a story arch, that's a different story. There's not many RPGs out there without a story, so I could live with that line of argument.

I am not "holding combat against BB's RPG-ness". Some classic cRPGs are pretty much tactical games (Icewind Dale 1 comes to mind).

But for some reason I never thought of it as a cRPG, but a tactical game with RPG elements, which is also how Jagged Alliance marketed itself. Now, that I think of it, I am not sure why this is so. I guess that's because Battle Brothers isn't very personal. You technically exist, but you aren't an in-game character so Battle Brothers feels much more like X-COM in this aspect (evenmoreso with Battle Brothers themselves being expendable fodder, whereas in Jagged Alliance mercenaries were more akin to irreplaceable NPCs). The lack of a story as such, as you mention, could be another factor. You have exploration of the world map, but you have no RPG-like adventure and it's really stripped of eveything that's not combat: no traps, no dungeons, no secrets, no real interactibility with the in-game world (in the RPG sense)...

That said, Battle Brothers still beats majority of games that pretend to be RPGs. Which only shows what an odd duck it is and how pathetic the RPG market is nowadays.

 

[Darth Canoli]

so just like legends mod?

Legends mod offers 3 choices.

• No women (only the vala and hexe characters will be women if you get them because they're witches)
• Women limited to some backgrounds (washerwoman, shieldmaiden, etc. )
• Women everywhere.

As long as there's a choice, I don't see any problem and I usually play with the second option even if i rarely get any, the vala, sometimes and the hexe when i choose the hexe origin (now, you can get one through some firstborn missions if you chose to recruit her) or eventually a shieldmaiden if i find a good one.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

What modern 3d graphics can give me what beautiful sprites can't?

 

[ERYFKRAD]

What modern 3d graphics can give me what beautiful sprites can't?

Cost

 

[vota DC]

1M€ in government funding, in current Germany, it probably comes with strings attached.
Like half the mercs will be women, 25% turkish and 25% will be migrants heroes from all over Africa.

And the haircuts.
And some romance but only between mercs of the same gender.

I can't wait to see what it looks like, it's going to be fun.

You will have a sjw wife that force you to make rapefugee escort mission but you can sell rapefugee back to their jailers and say "Ooops sorry darling my hands are tied" just like in Suzerain you can veto your wife women right project and she Is still happy.

 

[Darth Canoli]

"Ooops sorry darling my hands are tied" just like in Suzerain you can veto your wife women right project and she Is still happy.

You obviously never got married, that's not how wives work at all.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

"Ooops sorry darling my hands are tied" just like in Suzerain you can veto your wife women right project and she Is still happy.

You obviously never got married, that's not how wives work at all.

She's been veto'd her opinion is of no consequence.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I always thought the devs to be total masochists to come up with a game like Battle Brothers. This is confirming my theory - only absolute masochists, fully pain-tolerant can grind through that administrative process to finally get a grant approved.

It's widely known they are Germans.

 

[PorkaMorka]

I always thought the devs to be total masochists to come up with a game like Battle Brothers. This is confirming my theory - only absolute masochists, fully pain-tolerant can grind through that administrative process to finally get a grant approved.

This kind of reminds me of their development process too, Battle Brothers is in a reasonably well balanced and playable state right now, but many times when they introduced a new gimmicky encounter in a DLC it had to be heavily reworked one or more times before it was satisfying, the initial version was really flawed.

Gotta give em credit for putting in the work to get it right, but that may be an indication that they need long development timelines.

 

[Reinhardt]

many times

i remember only alps being

heavily reworked

 

[PorkaMorka]

many times

i remember only alps being

heavily reworked

We're on like the 4th version of ALPs, they also had to heavily rework their nimble mechanic immediately after releasing it because everyone was conquering the game naked, and as far as I know the Kraken is still in a pretty terrible state despite being reworked

Might be a few other things but I wasn't around for the release of the two later DLCs and only played them later so my impressions were based on early Beasts and Exploration meta, when a lot of things had to be reworked after release

 

[Serus]

Why in a thread about a Battle Brother's successor we have Darth shilling for the Legends? Again. I get it, you like it very much but come on.


A lot (most?) party-based crpgs made before ~1995 were "tactical games with rpg elements". Doesn't make them not-crpg. And even later, a lot of those were made / are being made. Some even had replaceable characters. If anything makes BB not an rpg is not how the characters are handled - so stop being autists about that - but the fact that there isn't any kind of a single narrative tying the gameplay all together. But even that is questionable because same thing can be said about Darklands.

In addition don't talk about "JA" when you want to say "JA2" and vice versa. It is not helping. And finally, JA2 was sold as "tactical rpg", i even remember a photo of the original box posted by someone with this exact phrase.

 

[RNGsus]

I hope it isn't a modern setting, but something like Italian Wars in space.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Nobody mentioned the lack of the term "RPG" in the game's description. I wonder if that remains the case when it's formally announced.

battle brothers isn't an rpg either so

 

[Reinhardt]

Nobody mentioned the lack of the term "RPG" in the game's description. I wonder if that remains the case when it's formally announced.

battle brothers isn't an rpg either so

more rpg than 90% games in this subforum

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Nobody mentioned the lack of the term "RPG" in the game's description. I wonder if that remains the case when it's formally announced.

battle brothers isn't an rpg either so

more rpg than 90% games in this subforum

it's as much of an rpg as xcom

 

[ADULF HITLOR FAN KLUB]

battle brothers isn't an rpg either so

more rpg than 90% games in this subforum

Rusty is just being Rusty. He hates everything that is good.

 

[Reinhardt]

Nobody mentioned the lack of the term "RPG" in the game's description. I wonder if that remains the case when it's formally announced.

battle brothers isn't an rpg either so

more rpg than 90% games in this subforum

it's as much of an rpg as xcom

which is again more rpg than 90% games in this subforum

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Nobody mentioned the lack of the term "RPG" in the game's description. I wonder if that remains the case when it's formally announced.

battle brothers isn't an rpg either so

more rpg than 90% games in this subforum

it's as much of an rpg as xcom

which is again more rpg than 90% games in this subforum

you're confusing tacticool games with rpg

 

[Reinhardt]

Nobody mentioned the lack of the term "RPG" in the game's description. I wonder if that remains the case when it's formally announced.

battle brothers isn't an rpg either so

more rpg than 90% games in this subforum

it's as much of an rpg as xcom

which is again more rpg than 90% games in this subforum

you're confusing tacticool games with rpg

tacticool games are more rpg than 90% games in this subforum.