The original Brigador came out with a bang. The indie game wears its influence of isometric destruction action games of the PS1 generation on its sleeves. It came out when retro dystopia and darkwave were just getting cool. Brigador, for a game about wanton destruction with a politically-charged setting, is cool. Because you get to drive mechs and tanks and cool-ass machines of destruction.
Brigador Killers, the long-awaited sequel, is even more ambitious. It’s now riffing on Syndicate and its likes by adding grounded combat on top of the established vehicular action.
Thankfully, this mech game that’s adding on-foot combat isn’t falling to the trappings of when Front Mission went Left Alive. The on-foot combat, and extraction/crafting mechanics, gives the missions in Brigador Killers where you do get in the vehicle much more meaning.
Brigador Killers has you go around on-foot, collecting loot from dead enemies, crates and even vehicles. Whether it be tuk-tuks, cop cars or some random jalopy parked in the map, they can be driven around at will should you choose. The game has a classic control scheme that will be familiar to folks who play PC games in the 90s. Tank controls for vehicles, which is surprisingly intuitive when the isometric camera is always fixed. Aiming guns on foot can be done by just clicking on the enemy, or at least in the direction of the enemy as bullet fire linearly as projected by the cool-looking targeting reticule. Inventory management is a drag-and-drop affair.
The demo does feature controller support, but it’s supremely barebones, to the point that analog stick movement is not calibrated, so it’ll pick up the minor drifts that supposed to be within tolerance. It has the options to tweak them, but I don’t recommend playing the Brigador Killers on controller. I struggled through the first “proper” mission as I couldn’t aim well enough (a problem I remember having with Weird West, until they added twin-stick aiming for controllers). On keyboard and mouse, I’m a well-oiled murder machine ready to do the dirty work.
The on-foot shooting is a blast. There’s accuracy penalty for firing while moving, and a bonus for staying still, crouching or even go prone. Enemies can be tough to spot, intentionally so. They can make use of darkness to obscure themselves, run away to reposition, or even lie prone and play dead. The moment you stop firing thinking it’s safe to loot before realising that body is still breathing and needs more bullets in them are regular, and I’m not complaining.
The Brigador Killers demo has a four-mission story where you get to see the narrative unfold. I keep getting jumpscared by the big and uncanny-looking portraits for the characters. That’s the mark of quality, as Brigador Killers authentically replicated the off-putting, at least for me, CG renders in video games pre-Y2K, like Fallout (not the Bethesda ones, the Black Isle ones).
That sweet smile by that unnamed person introducing the Garage and made mention to wishlist Brigador Killers before offing himself will be in many nightmares. The story itself has this hard-edge tone to it, but it’s also full of intrigue. This is a game where you can be a giant pinball of death flattening the whole city as a wrecking ball and squashing any person alive that can also make you think about the political impacts of your actions. That’s all fine by me.
When the story bit is done, you get access to the sandbox where you can take on more missions. This is where Brigador Killers get interesting. You see, to gain access to all the cool vehicles (some still having charming placeholder art drawn in Paint, none of that generative slop, thankfully) you need to gain parts. And you’ll have to scavenge this from missions.
There are missions where all you do is to salvage as much parts as you can bring back home. And these feels for better or worse like an extraction shooter. But it’s solo, no PVP, and to my knowledge, not much penalty on death. So more like scavenging parts in a survival crafter, or rather, Fallout (not the Black Isle ones, the Bethesda ones). The inventory management UX can be improved still. Having to specifically place ammo, guns or items in the right slot on your person is annoying, moreso if it’s with a controller.
It’s cool walking to a map on-foot and after a bunch of shooting and looting, come home with a hijacked car stashed with vehicle parts too heavy to carry on your backpack. The number of vehicles already implemented is rather staggering. Not all of them are those walking mechs, there are also ball-driven vehicles (where the wheels are are ball-shaped), powersuits like Fallout (the Black Isle ones, the Bethesda ones, and Obsidian should be making more than one if you ask me), and bikes.
Thanks to the looting and crafting system, getting these vehicles is now an aspiration, something to look forward to and work towards. Thankfully, the on-foot combat feels good, so you don’t feel like you’re locked out from playing the actual game you wanted out of Brigador Killers.
Closing Thoughts
Brigador Killers has the ingredients to be a killer game. The demo shows strong foundation, though I wouldn’t mind if the game doubles down on the looting and crafting aspects to make it feel more like a solo extraction shooter in some ways.
The payoff of the new on-foot combat is the great highs from the original Brigador, where you can unleash all hell, level down buildings, squish pedestrians and blow up cars and vehicles in your giant mech (or some other vehicle). And the latter is made more satisfying now that it’s something you work up to get to. Mech and vehicle-induced destruction, with blood and gore rendered in crunchy pixels, is now aspirational.
Brigador Killers will be out on PC (Steam).
Played on PC. Demo based on the build available during Steam Next Fest June 2026.