LAST EDITED ON Feb-21-26 AT 02:55 AM (EST)
 
So, the guys who made the acclaimed fantasy mercenary company game and masochism simulator - Battle Brothers - have released an Early Access version of their next game on Steam. And it's everything I ever wanted out of a Totally Not Aliens Game.

Basically, a Totally Not Colonial Marines ship has had an accident in FTL transit, most of the command staff is dead and the ship itself is in a very bad way. It got to where it was going - an out of the way, isolated system called the Wayback, plagued with local gribbly wildlife, roaming pirate gangs, a PDF that's become a military junta and .

You, a nameless Major, get defrosted, offered a seltzer and calming tablet by the ship's surviving intel officer, and told to Figure Shit Out.

Figuring Shit Out consists of picking and arming your remaining squad leaders and squads, working for the local factions (a casino planet run by organized crime but it's okay the rep is hot, China But With More Suck, Soulless Corporation Probably Run By AI), getting the ship back in order, and ultimately investigating the - the titular menace.

You get a fairly standard strategy layer that has you make the occasional decision to a random event, use resources you gain during missions to repair the ship, level up and gear up your team, and pick your deployments.

Deployments themselves are short mission chains with individual mission rewards.

The thing is, the game does a really good job of making you mix things up depending on who your fighting, be it masses of pirate chaff, aliums, or local PDF that actually comes at you with spotters, specialist teams, mortars and all that good stuff.

Sadly you don't get custom squad leaders, mostly because the batch you're given and can recruit locally get unique traits and perks in their leveling trees, and some combinations of those if you could pick and choose would be very very broken, but they're a fun bunch. Eventually, there's going to be actual inter-squad tensions and relationships, but they're saving that for the main game. Also eventually, they're going to let you loose on all the worlds of the Wayback system rather than just the currently represented 3 (ice, desert, forest).

Personally, I can only recommend it. If you ever wanted to play a tactical game that totally isn't Aliens meets Terminator ...

... actually, I think the devs might have gone 'so, what are we going to use as a setting? I know. 90s James Cameron.'

Also, Marta Carda is a cutie patooie and I will and do judge anyone who doesn't take her as one of their beginning lineup of squad leaders quite harshly.

In short? Be accurate. Be careful. Get familiar with the danger close rules for artillery support ...

... and remember, SERVICE IS ALWAYS AN ACT OF VALOR.

EDIT: The game's opening cinematic was made by the dude who made the Astartes shorts, btw.