It’s not too often that we here at GiN review games that are in Early Access on Steam, as we normally wait until they are fully released. But then again, we don’t normally get to play a game which was developed by the team behind Battle Brothers, Overhype Studios, and published by rising start Hooded Horse of Manor Lords fame. The gameplay so far is pretty good. There are a few minor annoyances and balance issues, but those can easily be modified as Menace continues to develop. As such, although we will give Menace an overall score for how it stands right now, we’ll also go back and give it a full review and another look once it officially is released. But the base of what is there right now is very solid.
Menace takes place in the lawless Wayback system, where players command the battered remains of a military strike force after a disastrous deployment leaves their flagship damaged, their troops under-equipped and their larger support network effectively gone. From that weak starting point, the goal is to slowly rebuild enough power and influence to restore order, or at least to survive long enough to impose your version of it. That means taking on missions for competing local factions, gathering resources, improving your troops and equipment, and trying to piece together how much of the chaos in the system is just ordinary frontier violence, and how much is tied to the larger alien threat known as the Menace. It’s a good setup for an Early Access strategy game because it gives players a believable reason to start small while still hinting at much bigger battles to come.
Once you get most of the fires put out on your flagship, you will start to get distress calls from various factions around the system. Initially, nobody will like you too much, although you can improve your relationships over time in order to make them true allies. The factions also compete against one another, so helping one could hurt your reputation elsewhere, even if it’s just missed opportunity costs.
Starting out players get to deploy up to four squads, with each one rallying behind a leader. Each of the leaders has different initial skills, possible upgrade paths and costs. Only one of your first heroes can be part of the mechanized forces, so only they can deploy and drive vehicles, although one other squad can ride in the back if you pick a truck or an armored personnel carrier (APC). It seems like vehicles are really powerful compared with most infantry units, so it’s a shame that you don’t have access to more of them when starting out. That would certainly flatten out the learning and difficulty curve.
Once you accept a mission, you deploy your forces within a small area that defines your starting position. On rescue or recon type missions, that normally means at the very edge of the map. On defense missions, you are usually dropped into the middle. The combat is turn-based with players moving and shooting or taking special actions, and then enemies doing the same on their turn. A lot of things factor into your success or failure, including weapon quality and range, how far out you can see into the fog of war and the morale of your troops, which is affected by how much damage they have taken and by some of the special skills employed by certain leaders.
The difficulty of Menace seems overly punishing right now, at least at first. It also depends heavily on the kind of mission you take on. For example, when I first started playing, I agreed to help one faction battle pirates on a snowy world. We deployed into a storm at night, which limited visibility. Our orders were to advance on a communications station being held by pirates. The problem was that they were all in entrenched positions, including up in towers that let them see all around the battlefield. They could snipe at us and attack from cover while we were still advancing over open ground, and they could see us long before we could properly detect them.
After trying again and again and only doing minor damage to the pirates, it seemed pretty hopeless as a starting mission. So, I reloaded my save and made a different choice, this time agreeing to help another faction fight against Starship Troopers-style bugs. That turned out to be a much better fit because many of the bugs did not have ranged attacks and generally used much poorer tactics than the pirates.
Our first mission there was to defend against a bug onslaught in a small town while keeping some civilians alive at the same time. The bugs were not complete pushovers either. They did try to swarm us with melee units, but they also attacked us with spitters, spike-throwers and even a bomber bug that lobbed artillery from afar. We had to use our only APC to rush toward the bomber, find it quickly in a forest and take it out before it could wreck our defenses back in town. There was also a supply drop that landed far outside our defensive zone, and with the APC tied up we had to send our scouts all the way out to retrieve it while fighting through stray bug units along the way.
That was an exciting and balanced encounter, and it showed what Menace does well. Even when the odds are tough, the actual turn-to-turn combat feels smooth and polished. Movement is clear, attacks have satisfying impacts and the battlefield generally communicates what is happening in a way that makes it easy to understand why things are going right or very wrong. That matters in a hard strategy game. Menace may sometimes feel brutal, but it rarely feels clumsy.
Most of the missions that you accept are actually mini campaigns. This gives you a choice of a few different battle selections to advance the campaign, although everything comes together in the end with a boss battle or a really big fight. For our middle campaign choice, we picked a rescue mission over another defensive fight. The reason was that, as a reward, we could enlist two local hunters to help out during the final mission. Given that our long-range firepower was very limited at that point, the hunters were sorely needed.
The rescue mission went off well enough. We were able to slowly move across the battlefield and pick off any bug units we encountered with our infantry. Meanwhile, our APC rushed forward and located the NPCs we needed to save. We loaded them into the back and made a run for the exit. It was a lot more complicated than that, and the bugs were very persistent but we made it.
The final mission in that campaign involved poisoning bug nests to stop them from spawning new units. The hunters did indeed prove invaluable, shooting incoming bugs at extreme ranges while our core troops spent their action points dealing with the nests. Once the nests were destroyed, they added their fire to the hunters’ shots. Between that and the APC providing cover and chasing down more powerful units, the final battle was challenging without becoming overwhelming.
At the conclusion of each mission, players can collect bug parts or other treasures in order to sell them for money. That money can then be used to buy better gear on the black market. Honestly, the rewards and black market pricing seemed pretty stingy. After selling everything we managed to collect, the best we could do was get a small rifle upgrade for one squad and a new ammo pack for the APC so it could fire more than just a few shots each mission. Our heroes also gained experience, and a couple of them were able to improve their skills.
Subsequent missions were still challenging, although nothing like the wall we hit during our original fight with the pirates. Visually, Menace also leaves a strong first impression. The battlefields have a clean, gritty sci-fi look, the units are easy to read in combat and the overall presentation already feels more complete than many Early Access strategy titles. It’s not just functional. It looks good, and that visual clarity helps support the tactical gameplay rather than getting in its way.
In the end, Menace already has a very solid foundation. The tactical battles are tense, the mission structure is engaging and the combination of faction politics, squad customization and vehicle support gives the whole thing a lot of potential. It is still clearly an Early Access title, and some balancing, economy tuning and onboarding could use more work. But the core of the experience is strong enough that strategy fans should feel comfortable keeping a close eye on it now and probably jumping in early if they don’t mind a serious challenge.
