Summary
- Turn-based tactics games prioritize short-term planning over long-term strategies for intense, decision-heavy gameplay experiences.
- Indie tactical games like Overland and Mortal Glory 2 offer unique, challenging encounters and innovative mechanics for players to enjoy.
- From Cyber Knights: Flashpoint to Battle Brothers, each game in this list provides deep tactical combat with a variety of strategic options.
Turn-based tactics games often involve more short-term planning than they do long-term, focusing on turn-by-turn gameplay rather than encouraging the player to develop overarching strategies. Tactics games come in all shapes and sizes, from large-scale tactics games such as XCOM to tactical RPGs such as Battle Brothers.
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The indie scene has seen a variety of tactical games, though the tactics genre is arguably underserved when compared to the abundance of strategy games available today. These examples, however, offer a variety of high-quality tactical experiences developed by indie teams.
7 Overland
Slow-Burning And Intense Tactical Encounters
- Platform(s): PC, Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo Switch
- Released: 2019
- Developer(s): Finji
- Genre: Tactics
Reminiscent of The Oregon Trail, Overland is a heavily stylized turn-based tactics game that puts players in control of a small group of characters. The game's eerie atmosphere and flat-color art-style may be its greatest strengths, but the slow-burning tactical encounters are frequently intense.
Overland doesn't encourage players to be aggressive, with the best solution to any encounter usually being to go as fast as humanly possible. This is because the enemies in Overland are incredibly deadly, and while fighting them is possible, it's far from efficient. However, this leads to some intense situations in which every decision matters, adding weight to every choice the player makes.
6 Mortal Glory 2
A Gladiator-Themed Tactical Roguelike
- Platform(s): PC
- Released: 2024
- Developer(s): Redbeak Games
- Genre: Roguelike
This turn-based tactics Roguelike is a gladiator-themed fantasy game in which players control a group of characters, each with their own unique abilities, in small-scale tactical combat encounters. The game features a broad variety of races and items to equip them with, and each character can also level up over the course of a run.
Mortal Glory 2's variety of relatively simple, grid-based battlegrounds are made more interesting via their array of environmental hazards. These include explosive barrels that can be pushed into enemies, and pits for players to knock enemies into.
5 Cyber Knights: Flashpoint
A Combination Of Turn-Based Stealth And Action
Cyber Knights: Flashpoint
- Released
- October 17, 2023
- Developer(s)
- Trese Brothers
- Platform(s)
- PC
- Genre(s)
- Stealth
Taking place in a cyberpunk setting, Cyber Knights: Flashpoint is a combination of turn-based tactics and role-playing games. In Cyber Knights, players build and manage a crew of rogues and mercenaries, pulling off heists with challenging combat and stealth mechanics.
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While each mission can prove deeply tactical, players will also have to be strategic about how they build and customize each member of their crew. Picking the right skills in each character's skill tree, and equipping them with the right weapon mods can have a dramatic effect on how each mission plays out.
4 Fights In Tight Spaces
A Tactical Deck-Builder
- Platform(s): PC, Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo Switch
- Released: 2021
- Developer(s): Ground Shatter
- Genre: Deck-Builder
This combination of deck-building and turn-based tactics features a stylish, flat-color aesthetic that matches its slick combat. Fights In Tight Spaces only has players controlling a single character, but the gameplay is both turn-based and highly tactical, thanks to each move requiring a card play.
Fights In Tight Spaces is focused predominantly on hand-to-hand combat in claustrophobic environments that will likely appeal to fans of action films such as John Wick. Fans of tactics games and the deck-building genre alike will appreciate this title's combination of tactical positioning and careful card play.
3 Xenonauts
A Love Letter To Old-School XCOM
- Platform(s): PC
- Released: 2014
- Developer(s): Goldhawk Interactive
- Genre: Tactics
Taking inspiration from old-school XCOM games, Xenonauts is a decidedly retro experience that - like its inspirations - can be extremely unforgiving. Xenonauts is a love letter to the original XCOM in many ways, but features several modernizations and, as a result, smoother gameplay.
Despite being a relatively hardcore experience, Xenonauts is dramatically more accessible than the older XCOM titles. This is in large part thanks to its aforementioned modernizations, with improved graphics and a cleaner user-interface being the key factors.
2 Battle Brothers
A Tactical Sandbox RPG
Battle Brothers
- Released
- April 27, 2015
- Platform(s)
- Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows
- Developer
- Overhype Studios, Ukiyo Publishing Limited
- Genre(s)
- Indie Games, Tactical, RPG, Strategy, Adventure
This sandbox RPG tasks players with managing a mercenary company, taking on contracts and fighting gruesome turn-based battles. Battle Brothers takes place in a dark, low-fantasy setting with several unique enemies, as well as a variety of factions, each with their own armies. The player also has a reputation with each of these factions, adding a layer of depth to the game's management systems.
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Characters in Battle Brothers are extremely customizable, each of whom has a set of statistics and perks that players can use to specialize them. This makes the game's tactical combat all the more rewarding, with each perk having a dramatic effect on how combat plays out. Furthermore, the game's hexagon-based battlefields also feature terrain that accounts for high and low ground, and the morale system adds an extra layer of complexity to an already deep game.
1 Into The Breach
A Deeply Tactical Puzzler
Into the Breach
Developed by Subset Games, the team behind FTL: Faster Than Light, Into The Breach is a deep combination of turn-based tactics and puzzle games. In the game, players control a squad of mechs, defending cities from an alien invasion. What makes Into The Breach so special, though, is the abundance of information it provides to the player. This allows the player to make informed decisions, leading to an experience that's rarely frustrating.
Furthermore, Into The Breach allows the player to undo moves and even reset their entire turn, encouraging experimentation. The variety of mechs, each with their own unique move-set, are also noteworthy, making Into The Breach a highly-replayable game.
Special Mention: Tactical Breach Wizards
- Platform(s): PC
- Released: 2024
- Developer(s): Suspicious Developments Inc
- Genre: Tactics
Tactical Breach Wizards is the new game from Suspicious Developments, the studio behind games such as Gunpoint and Heat Signature. Tactical Breach Wizards is a grid-based tactics game that will be immediately familiar to fans of games such as XCOM, though it plays very differently.
In Tactical Breach Wizards, players control a team of wizards and witches with powerful abilities, taking out rooms full of enemies with guns and magic, or sending them flying out of windows. Similarly to Into The Breach, Tactical Breach Wizards also takes a more forgiving approach, allowing players to undo moves and experiment with the best solution to any given encounter.
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