Apologies in advance for the slew of FTL comparisons.

FTL is one of my favorite games of all time, so when Subset announced Into the Breach, I foolishly allowed myself to get my hopes up. Turns out, even though they are completely different games linked only* by a thin thread of choice-based quasi-randomness on the overworld map, it exceeded my expectations.

There's an argument to be made that it lacks replayability compared to FTL, which is accurate to some degree, but it's hard to compare any minimalistic game to FTL's replayability just by its design philosophy (closer DNA to Rogue, more randomness, overall higher difficulty, storied events...), but I personally LOVED going after every achievement in Into the Breach, which requires probably something like 20-30 successful playthroughs at an absolute minimum, and I'm not normally particularly interested in achievements. Though to be fair, the achievements are a (well-implemented) part of the progression system in this game, which really made them exciting and rewarding to pursue, even if a few of them could be a bit maddening in the moment!

If you do "everything" "right," you have an extremely high probability of winning in any given playthrough, particularly when compared against FTL. That becomes more obvious when you look at the nicely-tuned mech squads and pilots versus the (intentionally) somewhat imbalanced nature of all the different FTL ships and variants.

It may not look like it on the surface, but Into the Breach is an absolute triumph in gaming. I can't think of another game offhand that has such an elegant balance to its puzzle-like randomness and the player's choices to deal with it. It is immensely satisfying when you're on the back foot staring at the battleground mulling over your dwindling options for what seems like forever, only to suddenly realize "WAIT! If I move this unit FIRST, then I can knockback that enemy INTO my first unit which will do enough damage so that the other enemy unit acting BEFORE it will kill it, clearing the way for that OTHER enemy unit to hit THAT unit, which will charge into it and knock it into the water, KILLING IT INSTANTLY AND WINNING THE DAY BECAUSE I AM A TACTICAL GENIUS."

It feels good. Trust me.

Apologies in advance for the slew of FTL comparisons. FTL is one of my favorite games of all time, so when Subset announced Into the Breach, I foolishly allowed myself to get my hopes up. Turns out, even though they are completely different games linked only* by a thin thread of choice-based quasi-randomness on the overworld map, it exceeded my expectations. There's an argument to be made that it lacks replayability compared to FTL, which is accurate to some degree, but it's hard to compare any minimalistic game to FTL's replayability just by its design philosophy (closer DNA to Rogue, more randomness, overall higher difficulty, storied events...), but I personally LOVED going after every achievement in Into the Breach, which requires probably something like 20-30 successful playthroughs at an absolute minimum, and I'm not normally particularly interested in achievements. Though to be fair, the achievements are a (well-implemented) part of the progression system in this game, which really made them exciting and rewarding to pursue, even if a few of them could be a bit maddening in the moment! If you do "everything" "right," you have an extremely high probability of winning in any given playthrough, particularly when compared against FTL. That becomes more obvious when you look at the nicely-tuned mech squads and pilots versus the (intentionally) somewhat imbalanced nature of all the different FTL ships and variants. It may not look like it on the surface, but Into the Breach is an absolute triumph in gaming. I can't think of another game offhand that has such an elegant balance to its puzzle-like randomness and the player's choices to deal with it. It is immensely satisfying when you're on the back foot staring at the battleground mulling over your dwindling options for what seems like forever, only to suddenly realize "WAIT! If I move this unit FIRST, then I can knockback that enemy INTO my first unit which will do enough damage so that the other enemy unit acting BEFORE it will kill it, clearing the way for that OTHER enemy unit to hit THAT unit, which will charge into it and knock it into the water, KILLING IT INSTANTLY AND WINNING THE DAY BECAUSE I AM A TACTICAL GENIUS." It feels good. Trust me.