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I was first shown Menace back in 2023, and much like the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, it's since never been more than four crackling neurons away from whatever thought my brain is currently holding. The tactical RPG, which is set in a Warhammer-esque universe and puts you in command of a strike cruiser sent to a lawless space system, packs the sort of depth my imagination usually fills in the blanks for in turn-based strategy games.
Yet the many layers of Menace, which range from customizing the minute details of your squads' loadouts to interstellar faction management and branching mission chains, aren't designed to be inscrutable. I routinely get my ass handed to me in Xenonauts, but when I finally get to play Menace for myself at Gamescom 2025, I'm more than a little surprised to find that it's still just as palatable as XCOM, with its wealth of mechanics feeling complementary rather than overwhelming.
I'm even more surprised to find that Menace is – without hyperbole – my idea of the perfect strategy game, with the freedom on offer feeding back into that all-important feeling of creating your own narrative.
Doing my part
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The demo I play opens up at a deployment screen, where my squad leaders can be kitted out and customized. I can spend manpower – a resource from the ship – to attach more squaddies (essentially hitpoints) to each character, but developer Overhype Studios warns me that going overboard could leave me with dangerous shortages in the future if I take heavy casualties. Likewise, I can choose to equip squads with higher-tier armor and specialist weapons like missile launchers and light machine guns, but there's a limit to how much can be spent on one mission – meaning you need to carefully pick and choose how your resources are allocated.
As part of that outfitting, I pair my squads with a light tank which in turn can be customized with different weapons. I'm glad I do – the next step is taking a look at the map we'll be fighting on, which is a large and fairly open desert. The goal is to capture two buildings, and my current intelligence level (which can be improved via the ship) gives me a rough outline of the expected opposition and their positions. Upon deploying, I can choose where to position my troops, and divide them to take each target simultaneously.
But, as anyone who's played the likes of XCOM or Xenonauts will know, the best-laid plans only have a 99% chance of working. Within minutes, one squad on the left side of the map are caught out in the open and decimated by Outcasts – scrappy, low-level criminals. A suppression system means the survivors are pinned, lying prone on the ground while a second squad returns fire from the questionable cover of a wall.
Meanwhile, my right flank has gotten off to a much stronger start and has not only captured their target building but has attacked and killed the pirates – who are better equipped than the Outcasts – while they're still moving into position, freeing them up to help with the first objective. Here's where the tank comes in handy – besides the giant laser-spewing cannon decimating everything in sight, it can also be used to ferry troops, meaning help is fast on the way for the squads who barely made it out of deployment.
The whole time, I'm grinning from ear to ear. This all feels like a living, breathing battlefield, every action an anecdote in the making. To capture that feeling of live combat, units continue to trade gunfire in the background even after their action ends, meaning the crackle and thumps of gunfire continue even as I deliberate over strategy.
Ultimately, the battle is won by calling in aerial support. First, one squaddie sends out a drone to peek on the other side of the building, revealing a bunch of pirates clustered behind cover. Next, I call in laser cannons – an aerial bombardment from our ship in space. This takes an entire turn to arrive, so you have to map out the targeted tiles using equal parts intelligence and foresight, but using a combination of a missile strike and laser strafe I manage to decimate a bunch of pirate squads who were previously at full-strength. It's a power trip and then some – one by one the few surviving pirates rout, as a morale system dictates how well and how long a unit will fight for. In this case, being served hot space death proves unpalatable, and they decide to scarper.
While my demo focused on the moments before and during a mission – less so the broader RPG and management elements that bringing law to the Wayback system requires – it's difficult to overstate just how right Menace gets everything I see. Overhype Studios provides so many tools for the player that Menace plays like an immersive sim in sheep's clothing, giving players so many tools and options to realize their own miniature narratives in missions. Take it from me, a guy who used to write diary-style entries for his XCOM 2 Ironman campaign – Menace is shaping up to be the real deal, and if I could, I'd shake every strategy fan in sight until they were paying attention.
Until Menace gets an early access release date, why not check out the best PC games we've rounded up?
