Into The Breach: Timeline Saviours

Game cover, "Into the Breach" is printed on the top center. The image shows a human standing on a rocky outcropping to the left bottom with a broke telephone poll to their left and a giant mechanised armour walker to their right. The scene show the mech and human looking out at a city in ruin with layers of collapsed buildings

Into The Breach, Subset Game's second game, is a isometric, turn-based strategy game with elements that could have it fall into the puzzle genre territory where you deploy a team of three mechanised vehicles called Mechs who are piloted into combat to square off and fight back the advances of the Vek, in short intense missions.

A brief introduction to the lore is that humanity has lost to the relentless Vek incursions and in a final act of defiance sends a pilot, with schematics, to another timeline in an attempt to save another parallel universe from the same fate.

In order to achieve this, one must complete at least two islands from the available four which will then allow one to assault a key point in the Vek's network and attempt to disrupt it so severely that it gives humanity a chance to recover.

When starting a new game, one will not have many options thus one is encouraged to start game. The player is instructed to select an island and then tasked with completing a number of missions that one selects from areas adjacent to the "liberated" zones and then drop into the combat area. From here, the deployed pilots must then attempt to complete the primary and whatever secondary objectives they can while fighting off waves of enemies and defending the power grid until the Vek fallback.

The power grid is an aspect that a player should be aware of as it is game over if it is reduced to zero but interesting enough when one is able to protect and overcharge it with excess power it increases its resilience with an increased chance, based off over-grid capacity, to ignore damage. It is something that should be considered and care should be placed to protect it however unless it is part of a secondary objective, tactical lose of this resource is preferable to losing out on completing objectives.

To that end, completion of primary objectives are of the most importance as it leads to mission failure if it cannot be completed, followed by secondary objectives if one can as it provides both reputation which acts as a currency and energy credits which automatically strengthen the power grid depending on the mission type and rewards it offers.

A island faction leader in the near top right corner telling the player: "An offshore volcano is causing tidal waves along the coast - and may help wash away the Vek threatening the area". Below this shows a map of the battlefield with a description to it0s left written: "Archival Flats. Vek Threat Detected! Bonus Objectives. (star shape - indicating reputation point) Take less than 3 Grid Damage. (Star shape) Protect the Old Earth Bar. Warning. Tidal Waves

Each of the four regions are unique with it having its own specialty with biome events, topography and quest types that a player can use to their advantage but also brings with it its own set of challenges to be aware of as each region's enemies are adapted to the conditions one faces and with each successive island victory do the Vek grow stronger with hardier foes and trickier enemy types that brings more difficulty to completing objectives.

Completing an island only provides a tangible bonus if a player is able to achieve a "perfect victory" which is when the player is able to complete all primary and secondary objectives on all missions on the island. The reward being one of three choices

A mech related piece of equipment
A pilot associated to the island
A +2 bonus to the power grid.

After being briefed one can then spend any reputation they have accumulated on either new skills, reactor cores or power grid reinforcement.

The reactor cores being of the most importance as it allows the player to assign and distribute more power to a pilot's mech systems which can improve movement, damage, unlock a new ability or allow a new ability aligned to the their mech to be installed and powered. It can also be found as a rare reward from certain mission types or collected when rescuing a time pod.

Time pods are survivors from other failed timelines that sometimes drop into a mission at random. Besides providing a reactor core on rescue they also have a pilot that if not yet collected adds to the player's available pilot selection when starting a new game; otherwise they act as either an improvement to the random generated pilots or as a spare in case one of your mechs falls in combat. Alternatively they can be "cashed in" for reputation to a faction at the end of an island operation.

The survivors added to the player's roster are generally better than the random pilots one gets assigned with and can be considered an equivalent to the player's selected pilot. Each one has either a powerful passive or active skill that can give them an edge in combat. Most of the pilots can be unlocked through gameplay with the addition of 3 secret crew members and a special team unlocked through completing all squad and game achievements.

Squads are what the player chooses to deploy and consists of 3 mechs that follow a theme or playstyle and by completing a squad's specific achievements does one earn special squad coins that one can use to unlock other squads. These coins are also provided when a player completes a general achievement. This system does force the player to become somewhat competent with all the mechs and aspects of the game with how the achievements are structured. One can consider them as a quest log of sorts and encourages the player to push themselves to improve and explore the systems that were developed.

When one is less concerned with squad achievements one could make use of the random selection option which creates a squad with the choice of having a

Balanced team which tries to create squads that are not overspecialised

Chaotic where it is truly random what collection of vehicles a player will be stuck with.

If a player is targeting specific general achievements and feels more comfortable with certain mech types then one can make use of the option to create a tailor-made squad instead which one could choose from what they have currently have unlocked to create a custom squad of mechs.

The combat itself takes place on a 8 by 8 grind with enemies and players taking turns in alternative order once a side has completed their turn. What is a little different from most tactic games is that it provides information on what the enemy is going to target on their turn and in which order they are going to attack in. Any basic movement the player attempts can be undone, however any action completed locks the decision in for the turn. There is a reset function that one can use to be able to reset and restart a turn however it is only available once per engagement and should be reserved for when one really finds themselves in trouble and would like to try something different in an attempt to try salvage what they can.

Considering that the Vek are usually stronger than what one can kill easily in a turn one must make use of the enemies' turn order to your advantage and by using your mech skills to displace and move enemies around to divert danger away from key infrastructure or redirect unavoidable fire towards troublesome Vek while also keeping the enemy reinforcement system in mind as it keeps the pressure on the player to make riskier moves to try keep a situation from spiraling out of control. One can block the enemy's reinforcements by blocking tiles that look like the ground is about to burst by either using your team's mech to occupy the tile at the cost of a health point, redirect the enemy to that location to take the hit instead or with some mech abilities be able to launch an obstacle on top of the spawning tile and deny the enemy of a reinforcement for a turn.

The Vek itself come in many varieties and their skills are also varied. Learning what each Vek is capable of and what effects one can have on death is very important as it allows one to prioritise and use it to the player's advantage. Another thing to keep note of is to learn about the buffs certain Vek spawns can apply to their allies as it can turn normally weak enemies into an unfavourable obstacle that can quickly roll over into unintended consequences that can cost a run.

The image shows a Laser Mech targeting three enemy Vek in the center of the battlefield, the laser spans across the battlefield and intersects a Sand Tile with the description in the bottom right corner stating : "Sand Tile. If damaged, turns into Smoke. Units in Smoke cannot attack or repair.". In the bottom right corner there is a Vek targeting the Objective Corporate Tower. To one block up and one block right from the Laser Mech is the stage's Spider boss that has multiple eggs lies around it to its north and south east.

When one notices it is less about Mecha versus Insect Kaiju and more about threat assessment and management does one see the deeper details at play. It refines tactical play and removes all the uncertainty in your actions as your pilots do not miss and neither does the Vek and it expects the player to take advantage of all the information that is given to them and try and figure out a solution one turn at a time.

It is a tactics game that wants one to slow down and try figure out the puzzle if one wants to aim for optimal play. It can be surprising how something that can appear hopeless can be worked around with some slower, more deliberate moves and in the worst case scenario what sacrifices one can commit to ensure a more agreeable victory in regards to objectives.

It takes a similar approach to difficulty as FTL Faster than Light (linked to my blog of this game) and, I think, in regards to that Subset have surpassed their first game as it removes the worst elements of randomness and what is left is a cleaner experience that places the challenge squarely on the player's ability to create a solution from the problem in front of them. The systems might not be as extensive but what is here is engaging and feels more "fair" in the sense that there is always something that one can do to mitigate a problem.

Into the Breach is great game for those that enjoy small scale turn-based tactics that encourages one to consider your every move to be important, however it is best played in short bursts as the requires planning and thinking which can be an exhausting experience especially for this style of play. It does accommodate to that as missions are seldom longer than five turns, but those turns feel denser as each is a battle to find the best way to get through it and setup subsequent turns.

Subset games have shrunk their scope and in doing so created a product that is far more finely-tuned in its execution that produces a controlled experience that is focused on its core experience and I personally feel it comes off better off from it.