Indie publisher Hooded Horse has two games to reveal at Gamescom 2023, and the first is Overhype Studio’s latest game: Menace.
Menace (or stylised as MENACE) is “a grounded sci-fi strategy experience that tasks players to restore order in the far reaches of space.”
Players travel from planet to planet, fielding units that include infantry, tanks and even mechs, to answer distress calls. Combat is turn-based.
Menace will see a full 3D engine being used, and a grounded far-future setting. There are still aliens but the aesthetic choice here is brutal near-future military rather than sleek futurism.
But a lot of the sandbox gameplay from Battle Brothers is being carried over to Menance, which includes “the existential horror of facing off against an unbeatable enemy”. Battles will be of bigger scale thanks to larger maps, and plenty of ways to approach a mission. There’s also a strategic layer as well, where other factions can be negotiated with to be allies, or marked for destruction.
If you’re a strategy tactics fans, in the vein of Xenonauts 2, Menace looks to be scratching the same itch, but done differently.
Menace is being showcased at Hooded Horse’s booth at Gamescom 2023, for those in attendance who want to check it out.
Menace will be released into Early Access in 2024 for PC (Steam, Epic Games Store).