The latest update for Menace, the turn-based tactics game where you play as space police in a system overrun with aliens and rebels, brings good news and bad news. On the one hand, it gives us two kinds of tank, letting us finally take some heavy armour into battle, but on the other, the cost of your failure just got significantly higher. If you lose a planet to Menace’s main enemy, the allied faction on the surface is wiped out.
Plus, there are three new ways to trigger a game over. So, quite a lot more bad news than good, I’m afraid.
The patch also adds wheat fields. That news is neutral.
Menace is the sci-fi turn-based tactics game from Overhype Studios, makers of Battle Brothers. It begins with you being thrust into control of a ship of colonial marines after the bridge suffers a catastrophic explosion upon arrival in a distant star system. Despite the damage, you need to set to work responding to the calls of local factions who are dealing with alien attacks, rebel uprising, and the spread of an unknown force called the Menace.
Currently in early access, Overhype have been fleshing out the game’s tactical sandbox with new features and weaponry for months now. Though the latest update is one of the most substantial in a while.
The good news is that heavily-armoured tanks are now available to loot from the battlefield or buy through the black market. Despite its sci-fi setting, Menace features a realistic ballistic system that sees your fleshier units cut down quickly if left out of cover. Heavy armour doesn’t just give you powerful cannons to deal damage to the enemy, but they can act as a moving wall to allow your infantry a means to cross an otherwise barren landscape.
Until now, we’ve had to make do with lighter vehicles and feeble battle mechs. A tank or two is a welcome addition.
Now, the bad news, that faction wipe. Dotted throughout the solar system are friendly factions who, if you bring on side through successful missions, will supply your ship with bespoke gear (called Operational Capacity Improvements, or OCIs for short). As the threats you face grow in strength, their toys are virtually essential in upping your firepower in battle. Now, though, they can be wiped out from your procedural campaign.
According to Overhype’s patch notes, “If a planet is fully corrupted by [REDACTED], the following happens now: The story faction of the planet is destroyed. All OCIs which were unlocked by that faction can’t be installed anymore. Only [REDACTED] operations spawn on that planet from now on.”
On top of that, if all planets get overrun by the Menace then it’s game over for your campaign. You can also now lose if your authority drops to -30 – this is the stat you spend to hire new squad leaders, and it rises and falls with mission successes and failures. Though, the lower it is, the more your squads will rebel on the battlefield, so at -30 you’re really going to be struggling already. Finally, if all of your squad leaders are killed and you can’t hire new ones from the black market then it’s also a game over.
In all those instances, you’re going to be circling the drain anyway – Menace missions are extremely tough, so if you’ve multiple planets spawning only Menace campaigns then you’re in for a challenge. Especially if you’ve lost a faction or two and their OCIs have stopped working. But the threat of a game over trigger is certainly going to be piling the pressure on.
Still. At least we got tanks.
And wheat.
