MENACE, the turn-based tactical RPG from Battle Brothers developer Overhype Studios, has sold over 250,000 copies since entering early access on PC in February. Publisher Hooded Horse marked the milestone with a new update that adds missions, rare loot, and wire cutting as a battlefield option. The game is available through Steam, GOG, the Epic Games Store, and the Microsoft Store for $39.99, and through PC Game Pass as a Game Preview title.
The setup is straightforward military sci-fi with a twist. A Republic Marine Corps strike force arrives in the Wayback system, a distant cluster cut off from the Core Worlds, expecting a routine pacification job. What they find instead is an alien presence that has taken root in the system's recesses, something unpredictable and unrelenting that puts every world at risk. With communications severed, the player sits at the top of the chain of command aboard the strike cruiser TCRN Impetus, making every call for a crew of marines, mercenaries, and criminals who have no one else to turn to.
What gives MENACE its shape is how much it lets the player decide before a single shot is fired. Distress calls roll in from across the system, and the player chooses which to answer, what resources to commit, and when to engage based on readiness. Each operation branches into multiple missions across entire worlds, and the order matters. Taking out enemy air defenses first opens the door for tank deployments. Pushing straight into hostile territory might rescue hostages and win local trust instead. Every decision carries consequences that ripple beyond the immediate operation and into the broader campaign. Faction relations shift depending on who the player courts: criminal elements offer intel, hacked enemy equipment, and better deals from black market dealers, while recovery and repair teams keep vehicles running and supply advanced tech. The player can't have everything, and the tension between those competing priorities is where the strategy lives outside of combat. On the battlefield itself, squads use flanking maneuvers, suppressive fire, and cover destruction to gain positional advantage. Weapons behave differently at range and against different armor types, and every round fired near an enemy squad causes suppression whether it hits or not. Plans built around pre-mission intel rarely survive first contact, and the game expects adaptation under pressure.
The Wayback system is a lawless frontier carved up between pirate warlords, questionable corporations, and fractured planetary governments all struggling toward some new order. Battlefields span diverse biomes with weather conditions that affect engagements, and the TCRN Impetus serves as both mobile headquarters and orbital support platform between missions. Players can upgrade and customize the ship to complement their battlefield approach, and local allies offer opportunities to gain further advantages. Without access to standard naval arsenals, equipment comes from black market dealers and the spoils of war, from jury-rigged pirate war machines to refined mercenary arms. The tone leans into the weight of that isolation: death is permanent for squad leaders and their squads, and the game frames every engagement as a deadly affair where numerically and sometimes technologically superior forces are waiting.
Overhype Studios, the Hamburg-based independent developer behind Battle Brothers, built its reputation on a tactical RPG where every mercenary felt expendable and every contract carried real risk. MENACE carries that same philosophy into a sci-fi setting where losing a squad isn't a setback screen but a hole in the roster the player has to work around. Fielding tanks, walkers, and infantry with a large selection of equipment, the campaign asks players to train troops, plan operations, and fight through a system where the human enemies are only the most familiar danger.