Into the Breach Reviews

Into the Breach's Advanced Edition update adds even more of what makes the base game so remarkable, creating an even better experience.

Into The Breach is a fantastic example of how you can play around with an established genre. Taking turn-based strategy and letting you see what is about to happen changes everything about what would normally play out. The feeling of intellectual superiority you feel when you outsmart the aliens is incredible and will keep you playing through every loss you will experience. Best of all the bite-size maps fit onto the Switch so perfectly that the idea of playing it on a PC is absurd. This is a game made for a handheld, and damn is it good.

For the asking price ($14.99), Into the Breach is a pretty good buy if you're into strategy games. However, I don't think it'll convert anyone into falling in love with the genre. The gameplay is tight, but not sophisticated enough to warrant more than a few playthroughs. Once you've unlocked most or all of the squads and tried out the different mechs, it loses its appeal and doesn't retain that "surviving against all odds" feel that FTL has. With that said, I enjoyed my time with the game well enough -- just don't expect to be converted if you're not already into these types of adventures.

Into the Breach is a mechanically perfect game that is surrounded by mediocre design decisions. I absolutely adore the tactics-style gameplay and how simplistically the game can convey so much information. But with the only run variance being the three pilotable mechs and the potential upgrades, things just start to feel “same-y” after not too long. For those, like myself, who can easily fall in love with intelligently designed mechanics, there is a lot to love about Into the Breach, but it’s not as well-rounded as it could be.

You better have to choose if it’s worth spending your spare cash, because it might not be the game for you and it might be for others.

It’s $15 on Steam right now, and hopefully will find its way to consoles in the near future. It doesn’t take overly long to beat once you get the hang of how the combat works, but the replay value is generally very high. In the future, hopefully, Subset Games will add more maps, more creatures, mechs, and the like to keep the game feeling fresh for months to come. Even without that, Into the Breach is something every strategy fan should try.

I want to make this review short because I need to go back playing Into The Breach. FTL was one of the most moreish games I ever had the (mis)fortune to stumble across, and accounts for dozens of afternoons, evenings and nights spent idly jumping between the stars and desperately trying to find a fire beam. Into The Breach has somehow perfected that formula that I didn’t realize wasn’t perfectible in the first place.

Occasionally a game comes along that imbues a genre with new life. A game that reimagines the standard and repurposes it in a simple yet elegant way. Into the Breach is most certainly one of these games. Releasing at the end of February by developer Subset Games, Into the Breach is a turn based strategy game that brings its own unique spin to the genre. Known for previously releasing a highly acclaimed game by the name of FTL, Subset Games had a lot of work to do to impress their fans and by ...

Into The Breach is a focused, excellent turn-based tactics game. Its small number of islands is offset by good procedural generation, a varied roster of squads and foes that will make you wonder whether you could have handled situations in a better way or not. Failure will occur, but so will satisfaction, as you learn the ropes and figure out the different ways in which challenges can be dealt with. Its three difficulty levels make it approachable regardless of skill level. Where Easy is perfect for getting the hang of the game and learning to look for interactions beyond just direct damage, the challenge increases significantly on Normal and Hard. Add in a high degree of replayability, alongside playthroughs that aren’t excessively long and which can be jumped in and out of at any time, and you’ve a title that anyone with an interest in turn-based tactics should have on their radar.

The first thing you need to understand about Into the Breach is that you are going to die. A lot. In fact, you’re probably going to die about 20 times before you even manage to clear the first island. It’s no problem, though; dying is simply a core part of the game.

This 8-bit gaming triumph proves you don't need overly complicated mechanics or 3D graphics to provide a stellar strategy experience.

An almost perfectly formed strategy game, that hides near infinite variety and depth beneath its deceptively simple presentation.

The wide variety of mech and pilot abilities make Into The Breach’s tactical combat deep, satisfying, and replayable. Every turn creates a new complex puzzle, and though sometimes there’s no perfect solution, finding the best way to minimize damage creates frequent eureka moments as you learn to make the most of the abilities you’re given to work with. It’s a small-looking tactics game that’s kept me playing more intently than most big ones.

A minimalistic but sublime strategy game from the makers of FTL.

Simplicity and elegance go hand in hand in many mediums, and Into the Breach demonstrates that the same can apply for game design. After the remarkable success of FTL, Subset Games has crafted a follow-up that maintains the same structural progression and addictive replayability, but tacks away toward a fascinating hybrid of turn-based tactics and puzzle gameplay. The result is a cleaner and tighter game than FTL, and one that is more fun, strategically complex, and consistently rewarding.