MENACE News

Welcome to our first real dev diary for MENACE.

This week we want to give you a first impression of the strategic part of the game.

So far we have shown only in-game footage of the tactical combat, which is still the core of the game, but nothing from the strategic part. One of the reasons is the UI, which is still very heavily work in progress for the whole game.

The tactical combat can easily be shown without any UI elements. As the strategic part mostly consists of menus, buttons, and lists, it is almost impossible to show anything without leaving a bad impression without proper UI elements.

Keep in mind that all images shown below are snapshots from active development or even mockups of how it is planned to look down the road. All functionalities and mechanics are, however, already in place and are currently tested and balanced by us.

This is just a first overview; we will dive deeper into each of these areas in a dedicated post.

[h2]The Starmap[/h2]
While the tactical combat is the meat of the game, the strategic part adds context to each battle, gives the player medium - and long-term goals, and also features various permanent progression mechanics.

The Starmap is the central hub and visualization of the Wayback, the distant star system where MENACE takes place. Here, you can see the planetary bodies, which factions own them, and who is calling for the aid of the TCRN Impetus to help with their local squabbles like an out-of-control pirate raid or alien infestation.

Players can look at available “operations” and plan out their next move. Local factions will be grateful for the player helping them out but will also be disgruntled if left hanging for too long.


Additionally, the player can track the main resources that are available to them here: Promotion points, which are used to promote and “level up” squads. OCI components are used to upgrade the player's ship and acquire more squad leaders; finally, authority points are crucial for managing the morale and mood of the crew of the Impetus.

Maintaining authority on a ship filled with a motley crew of characters can be difficult. There might be a fight between crew members, an accident in the hangar, or a discovered hidden moonshine distillery on board. All of these events will challenge you as a commander and, depending on your decisions, will have an impact on the mood of the crew, your authority, or the resources available to you.

[h2]OCIs[/h2]
The TCRN Impetus, the strike cruiser serving as your base of operations, is not well suited for the challenges ahead. Luckily, local factions do have the necessary space wharfs and the technical knowledge to improve the ship with what we call Operational Capability Improvements, or OCIs for short.


These OCIs are active and passive upgrades to the ship and have a wide variety of effects. Some give the ability to call in a dropship for a gun run in combat or to shoot a devastating rocket onto a particularly resilient bunker. Others allow squads to heal between missions or increase the “intelligence” rating, which grants better information on enemy units and positions during the mission preparation.

[h2]Armory[/h2]
The armory is where players inspect, manage, equip, and promote their squad leaders and pilots. There are tons of weapons, armor, accessories, and vehicles to acquire through the game, all with their individual pros and cons.

We go to great lengths to make equipment choices as meaningful and varied as possible in MENACE. Players should have maximum freedom in equipping their units and will be encouraged to experiment and enable their very own playstyle.


[h2]Promotions[/h2]
Each squad leader has their own unique perk tree that gets unlocked through so-called promotions. Promotion points are earned for each mission and can be spent on any character, while higher promotions cost more points.

Many of these perks will be shared between certain characters, but the combination of perks available will always be unique. On top of that, each squad leader starts with a trademark personal trait that is instantly unlocked.


[h2]But wait, there is more![/h2]
In order to keep the diariess to a reasonable length, we have to cut them here. There are plenty more elements to the strategic part of the game that we will talk about later.

There is a black market where players can barter for equipment to bolster their armory, new squad leaders and pilots can be hired and most importantly we will introduce “operations”, which are a series of connected missions.

Stay tuned and join us next Friday for the new Dev Diary!

It is finally time to break the silence on MENACE and spill the beans on all the ins and outs of the game, but most importantly to discuss them with you - our community!

To this end we will start our well known dev blogs that so many of you are used to from Battle Brothers.

We will follow a similar format and timing with focusing on a certain topic for each blog and share pictures, gifs or videos to go with it. We aim to publish a new blog every week on Friday and will also try to be available on our Discord after each blog's release to discuss the content with you!

Today we will address the most pressing topics:

[h3]When will MENACE release?[/h3]
We have been developing the game for a really long time with the first prototype dating back as far as 2018, that is 6 years now. Over the years we moved from a 2D perspective and our own engine to full 3D and Unity while also building the team up to 10 people.

Growing a team that much while moving to a whole new technology and developing a huge game at the same time is a massive challenge and might help to understand why development takes so long.

We are now in a state where we feel comfortable with finally announcing a release date window for the Early Access: Fall of 2025.

Yes, the game will be released into Early Access. For Battle Brothers the Early Access was absolutely essential in making sure the final release was as bug-free, well balanced and as feature rich as possible. Our community helped us tremendously with this and we want to have the same level of interaction and participation for MENACE.

[h3]What is MENACE?[/h3]
MENACE is a turn-based tactics game that models medium scale modern combat in a low powered SciFi setting pitching players against an overwhelming and ever evolving enemy threat.

You can find the full feature list and description on Steam, so head over there and read up on all the features of the game if you did not do that yet! Instead of repeating that info here we want to share some thoughts on the game itself.

Turn based tactics is our thing and that is what both MENACE and BB are. When playing MENACE you will very quickly feel the Battle Brothers DNA: Intuitive mechanics, meaningful tactical choices, tragic deaths, exhilarating wins and crushing defeats. All this while being a lot less frustrating and easier to get into than Battle Brothers. Meanwhile, the game will be even more complex and multi-layered to make sure you can really dive deep into it if you want.



Ultimately, both games are not only very challenging tactical combat simulations, they also aim to generate stories. To this end players need freedom of choice and despite MENACE introducing some handwritten elements it will still offer lots of procedural content, gameplay layers and moving parts that keep each playthrough different from the next and allow players to experience their very own stories of battles won and lost.

Finally, the visuals are on a whole new level. We feel that BB does have a unique charm but the presentation definitely left a lot of room for improvement. Our goal was to address this while still keeping the unique design and style that makes an Overhype Game. On the one hand, we now have mocap animations, massive explosions, ragdolls, full 3D models with legs, walkers, tanks and more.

On the other hand, we have hand drawn characters, weapons, items, icons and more that are of course drawn by Paul himself who also designed and created the concept art for all characters, environments and enemies in the game. We also opted for a realistic but somewhat abstracted and colorful visual style that is reminiscent of BB.

Any big change like this is a risk but we decided to take it and are convinced that evolving our own skill, the studio and the games we make to the next level is the right thing to do.


[h3]Why are we making MENACE?[/h3]
After the low-power fantasy world of Battle Brothers a change to the SciFi world of MENACE may come as a surprise for many community members. However, after working on Battle Brothers for almost 10 years we were in need of a fresh setting that helps us spark our creativity and enthusiasm.

We have always been huge fans of Warhammer 40k tabletop and video games like Dawn of War, Men of War, Jagged Alliance and - surprise - X-com. All games that revolve around modern or SciFi firearms based combat. The step from one turn based setting to the other felt a lot smaller for us as the overarching genre is still the same, just the means of battle are different.

With BB we wanted to model medieval small unit combat as close to reality as we could, including morale, fatigue, armor, weapon types and so on. With MENACE we aim to do something similar but this time with modern combat. Elements like concealment, detection, suppression, violence of action, flanking and more should model real life firearms combat as closely as possible.

In both worlds fantasy elements allow us to go way beyond a historical or contemporary combat simulator. Adding supernatural creatures, magic or advanced technology allows us to break up the restrictions of reality and introduce ever changing new challenges, surprises and possibilities both for the player and the enemies.


We decided to increase the scope of the game to model larger scale concepts like combined arms, vehicle warfare, squads, walkers, artillery and offmap strikes. The changed scope does not only drastically change how the game looks and feels but it also adds lots of new challenges and possibilities which players have hardly been able to explore so far in similar games.

In the coming weeks and months we will go into more detail on the different aspects of the game and are looking forward to chat about them with you!

There was a crowded second there when I read the press release and thought they’d militarised the Beano, but Menace is not, in fact, about Dennis the Menace joining the Colonial Marines. It’s the new turn-based tactics RPG from the creators of Battle Brothers, and look at that, it has a freshly deployed gameplay trailer.

Read more

[h3]We've passed 250,000 wishlists for MENACE -- which puts it within the top 100 most-wishlisted games on Steam. We're very grateful for your support![/h3]



It's been a fantastic journey getting to this point, and we're excited to share what we've been working on.

Since finishing Battle Brothers, we've focused on building a new, immersive experience with MENACE. It's a turn-based tactical RPG, but on a larger scale, set in the far future. You'll lead marines, mercenaries, and criminals through operations that will test your strategic thinking as you work hard to gain the trust of various factions, each driven by their own agenda in a distant system, cut off from the rest of humanity.

Whether you're taking on pirate warlords, rogue military entities, or unknown alien threats, your decisions will shape the system's future.

Reaching this milestone is a massive motivation for us as we push forward, refining the mechanics, adding new content, and listening closely to your feedback. Like with Battle Brothers, your input will be crucial as we move forward -- we know how important it is to get things right, and your support inspires us to aim higher every day.

Thank you to everyone who has wishlisted the game, shared it, and discussed MENACE. We're hard at work making MENACE the best game it can be, and we're excited to show you more soon. Keep an eye on our updates here on Steam, and join us on Discord for all the latest news.

[h2]Screenshots from Gamescom[/h2]