MENACE Review: War Crimes in Space Have Never Been This Stressful
I just watched my favorite squad leader turn into a fine red mist because I didn't check a sightline.
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That is the MENACE experience in a nutshell. Overhype Studios built their reputation on Battle Brothers, a game that simulated the misery of running a medieval mercenary company with terrifying accuracy. Now they have taken that same sadistic design philosophy, slapped some power armor on it, and shot it into space. You play as a commander in the lawless Wayback system trying to unite disparaging factions against a horrifying alien threat. But let's be real here. You are mostly trying to keep your idiots alive while managing a budget that makes a public school look well-funded. It is dark, it is gritty, and it is currently in Early Access. That means it is a little broken and a lot of fun.
The Tactical Meat Grinder
The combat in this game is not about landing a lucky critical hit or gaming a percentage roll. It is about suppression, positioning, and bringing enough firepower to level a city block.
Combined Arms is King
If you go into this thinking you can win with just a few super-soldiers running around like action heroes, you are going to have a bad time. MENACE forces you to mix infantry with heavy armor in a way that feels genuinely necessary. I found myself relying on tanks to blow massive holes in buildings just to give my marines a clear shot at the enemy inside. The synergy here is fantastic. You use your heavy machine guns to pin an enemy squad in place, then you roll a walker around the flank to roast them with a flamethrower. It feels heavy. The sound design sells it perfectly. When a tank cannon fires, the screen shakes and the audio punches you in the gut. It makes the combat feel consequential. Every decision matters because every mistake usually results in a body bag.
The Suppression Mechanic
This is the secret sauce that makes the game click. Bullets do not just do damage in MENACE. They scare the hell out of people. Even if you miss, shots flying past a unit will cause suppression. A suppressed unit loses action points. A pinned unit can barely move. This changes the whole tactical layer. You do not always need to kill an enemy to neutralize them. Sometimes just dumping a belt of LMG ammo in their general direction is enough to keep them useless while you move your assault team up. It adds a layer of realism that most turn-based games completely ignore. You stop looking for the kill shot and start looking for fire superiority.
This Ain't XCOM
I need to clear this up right now because I keep seeing the comparison floating around. This is not XCOM. There is no Overwatch crawling where you move an inch and wait for the enemy to walk into your crosshairs. This game plays much closer to Combat Mission or the old Jagged Alliance titles. You have to be aggressive. You have to seize territory. If you try to turtle up and wait for the enemy to come to you, they will just shell your position until there is nothing left but craters and regret. The AI is ruthless about this. It will flank you. It will suppress you. And it will punish you for playing passively. You have to take the fight to them.
The Tools of Destruction
The game gives you a massive toy box of weapons and vehicles to play with, but not all of them are created equal. You have tanks that feel like mobile fortresses and flamethrowers that turn the battlefield into a barbecue, which is all fantastic fun. Rolling an armored personnel carrier through a wall to create your own door never gets old. The heavy stuff feels great and solves problems instantly.
However, the balance is all over the place. For example, tripod weapons are currently useless. In a game where mobility is life, spending valuable action points to set up a heavy gun that can't move feels like a death sentence. By the time you get it deployed, the fight has moved two blocks away. The same goes for mortars. They are overpriced fireworks that rarely do enough damage to justify the cost. Why would I bring a mortar team when I can just bring another squad of riflemen who can actually hold ground? These items desperately need a buff or a rework to make them viable, because right now they are just traps for new players who don't know better.
The Strategic Headache
Between missions, you are stuck on your ship, the TCRN Impetus. This is where you manage your roster, buy gear, and deal with the game's most controversial feature.
The Supply Point Controversy
Here is where things get sticky. The game uses a "Supply Point" system to limit what you can bring on a mission. You have a hard cap. That means you cannot just deck out every squad with the best armor and plasma rifles. You have to make cuts. Do you bring an expensive tank and leave a squad of marines at home? Do you equip everyone with cheap rifles so you can afford one elite sniper? I actually like this because it forces you to make hard choices. But I know it rubs people the wrong way. It feels bad to unlock a cool new toy and realize you can't use it because you are 5 points over the limit. It creates a "zero-sum" feeling where leveling up a character might actually make them too expensive to field in the next mission.
The Black Market & Economy
The economy is just as ruthless as the combat. You don't have infinite money. You have to scavenge gear from the battlefield and trade it on the black market. The problem is that the market is entirely RNG based. Sometimes you get amazing weapons that change your entire playthrough. Other times you get a pile of useless junk that you can't even sell for a decent price. It adds to the replayability, sure, but it can also screw you over through no fault of your own. You have to be adaptable. If the game gives you lemons, you make lemonade. If the game gives you shotguns, you stop fighting at long range.
The Early Access Jank
The game is functional, but it is definitely not finished. There are cracks in the armor that you need to know about before you drop thirty bucks.
The "Benny Hill" AI
While the AI is generally aggressive and smart, it has a weird quirk where it sometimes decides to just run away. I had multiple missions that ended with me chasing the last two enemies around the edge of the map for ten minutes like a bad cartoon. They wouldn't fight. They wouldn't surrender. They just ran in circles until I finally cornered them. It kills the pacing of an otherwise intense battle and turns the climax into a chore.
Mission Impossible
Some mission types are just broken right now. Specifically the "Save the Civilians" objectives. The game will spawn civilians on the other side of the map and then immediately spawn enemies right next to them. I have had missions where the civilians were dead before I even took my first turn. It feels like the game is cheating. You are supposed to rush to save them, but unless you have teleportation technology that I haven't found yet, it is physically impossible to get there in time.
Suicidal Friends
Speaking of AI, the friendly units you sometimes get are braindead. You are supposed to protect them, but they seem to have a death wish. They will run out of cover, charge a tank with a pistol, or just stand in the open while getting shot. It is frustrating because their death often counts against your mission score. I found myself wishing I could just shoot them myself to save the enemy the trouble.
UI Crimes
The user interface is a mess. It is hard to read. Important stats like armor penetration or weapon range are often hidden or displayed in weird graphs instead of just giving me the numbers. Trying to figure out if my sniper actually has a line of sight to a target is often a guessing game. There were times I moved a unit thinking they were safe, only to find out they were standing in the open because the cover indicator lied to me. The inventory management is also clunky. You will spend a lot of time clicking through menus just to swap a grenade.
Atmosphere & Tone
The game nails the gritty sci-fi vibe, but it stumbles a bit in the writing department.
Voice Acting Whiplash
Battle Brothers had a very distinct, grim tone. MENACE tries to do the same but then throws in voice lines that feel like they belong in a Marvel movie. You are in a desperate fight for survival, people are dying, and your squad leader is cracking wise or shouting "Guardsman here!" for the five hundredth time. It breaks the immersion. The squad leaders are fixed characters rather than procedurally generated soldiers, so you hear the same lines over and over again. Some of them are walking stereotypes that grate on your nerves after a few hours. I miss the silent, blank-slate soldiers where I could project my own stories onto them.
The Verdict
MENACE is not for everyone. It is punishing, opaque, and occasionally frustrating. But it is also one of the most rewarding tactical experiences I have played in years. The core combat loop is incredibly strong. It captures the chaos of a firefight in a way that turn-based games rarely do. When your plan comes together and you execute a perfect flank, it feels amazing. When it falls apart and you have to scramble to survive, it feels terrifying. If you can look past the UI jank, the weird AI quirks, and the Early Access roughness, there is a gem here. It just needs a little more time in the polisher.
Score: 7.8/10 XCOM for people who hate themselves and love big tanks.
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