12 Tactical Games That Will Make You Sweat

Star Wars Zero Company, a tactical turn-based strategy game set in a galaxy far, far away, is coming out on August 27th. We've compiled 12 excellent "tactics" for you to dive into to pass the time and hone your skills.

XCOM Duology

The famous turn-based tactics series was excellently rebooted by Firaxis Games. The developers released two games: XCOM: Enemy Unknown in 2012 and XCOM 2 in 2016.

In Enemy Unknown, the player, as the commander of the XCOM organization, assembles an elite unit to repel an alien invasion. The gameplay is based on managing troops on a global map and tactical turn-based battles.

The strategic part is based on base development and combating the panic of world leaders. You will have to decide which regions of the world to save. In turn-based battles, the player controls a small squad, fighting aliens. Moreover, enemies adapt as you progress, so the player will have to adapt too.

The sequel takes place 20 years later. Earth is occupied, and XCOM is now a handful of rebels waging guerrilla warfare against the invaders.

A captured alien ship has become a mobile base for the heroes, and they travel across occupied Earth on it. The player needs to decide: collect resources or complete missions to prevent the villains' plans in time?

Stealth appeared in tactical battles, allowing for ambushes at the beginning of each mission. There are more additional tasks, some of them are time-limited and take place on procedurally generated maps, which adds variety.

Marvel's Midnight Suns

A 2022 tactical RPG from the same Firaxis. The game combines three elements: card-based tactical battles, a superhero friendship simulator, and exploration of a mystical abode.

The main character is the Hunter, a player-created character. Only they can defeat the demon mother Lilith, who begins to subjugate superheroes. They will be helped by characters who are still sane, such as Blade, Scarlet Witch, Spider-Man, and others – there are many different ones.

The combat system is built on a card system – each hero has their own deck of abilities, although Midnight Suns doesn't feel like a card game. The main feature of the battles is the ability to use the environment for your own purposes. For example, if you push one enemy into another, both will take increased damage. And if you combine this with certain abilities or are very lucky – you can kill enemies instantly.

Between missions, the heroes return to the mystical abode, which serves as a base. This is a full-fledged explorable location where the protagonist develops friendships with the heroes they find. Here you can give gifts and spend time with your favorite characters: participate in a book club with Blade or play video games with Spider-Man. The abode is full of secrets, puzzles, and lore.

Mario + Rabbids Duology

The collaboration between Nintendo and Ubisoft led to the creation of a tactical crossover duology where the Mario universe meets the crazy Rabbids from Rayman. It's a symbiosis of a colorful platformer, tactics, and absurd humor.

The first part – Kingdom Battle – sends players to the Mushroom Kingdom, distorted by a mysterious vortex. Mario and his friends team up with three Rabbid heroes to reverse the catastrophe.

The game can be called a family version of XCOM, although secret battles and late levels will give even seasoned tacticians a run for their money. Battles take place on a grid, like in chess. You control a squad of three heroes, moving across cells, using cover, and shooting weapons. There are also light puzzles between battles.

In the sequel – Sparks of Hope – the authors reassembled the mechanics from scratch, increasing the scale of the project. The action was moved to space. Heroes travel between planets on a ship to save the Sparks – hybrids of Rabbids and Lumas.

Characters can now move freely across the battlefield within their turn circle. This increased the dynamics of battles, as you can run behind cover or make a dash. The game allows you to experiment with builds: collectible magical abilities have appeared, and each of the nine heroes has unique combat styles and skill trees.

Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun

This real-time stealth tactics game brings the classic formula of "a squad of specialists against an army" to the setting of feudal Japan.

You control a group of five unique heroes, each contributing to the overall plan. Battles emphasize stealth – a frontal attack almost always leads to instant death, so patience, observation, and precise calculation are important.

The action takes place during the Edo period, when a new shogun united the country after long wars. However, a mysterious schemer named Kage-sama appears, threatening the fragile peace. The shogun entrusts the old samurai Mugen with assembling a squad and uncovering the conspirator's identity. The plot can surprise with drama, although at first it seems to be just a backdrop for the gameplay.

In each mission, dozens of enemies are placed with clear patrol routes and cones of vision. The tasks seem trivial: you need to kill a target, steal documents, or free a prisoner.

But how exactly to do it is up to you. You can sneak across rooftops, go through the sewers, or disguise yourself and walk right under the nose of the guards. Shadow Tactics is an elegant puzzle where cover, diversions, and sharp blades are the tools to solve it.

Phoenix Point

A turn-based tactical strategy game from the creator of the original XCOM, whose plot unfolds in 2047, 25 years after scientists found a mysterious virus in the Arctic ice. It rapidly mutates, infecting everyone and turning them into monstrous hybrids of humans and marine creatures. By 2047, humanity had lost.

The protagonist is the commander of "Project Phoenix" – a secret organization that was supposed to prevent the apocalypse but failed its mission. Now you must assemble a squad, rebuild a network of abandoned bases, and try to save what's left of humanity.

In combat, each soldier has 4 action points, and you can use them in different ways – the system is very flexible. Instead of an abstract hit percentage, weapons fire real bullets with spread. You can damage a specific body part of an enemy, which will affect their abilities, or shoot through a thin wall and enemies behind it. And if your soldier is in the line of fire, the bullet will hit both the enemy and the ally.

Monsters in the game study you. If you often use shotguns, crabs grow armor against shotguns. If you overuse snipers – enemies get shields. Therefore, you often have to experiment with builds and change your approach.

Jagged Alliance 3

A game about mercenaries with unique personalities, deadly firefights, and managing a country torn by conflict.

The action takes place in the fictional African country of Grand Chien – a former French colony rich in diamond deposits. The local president is kidnapped by the mysterious Major, and the country plunges into chaos. The president's daughter hires your squad of mercenaries to rescue her father and restore order.

In JA3, you constantly have to figure out who betrayed whom, whose diamond mines you captured, and who had the audacity to poach your best sniper.

All characters have a certain pool of points, depending on their characteristics, which they spend on movement, aiming, shooting, changing weapons, or healing. This provides incredible flexibility: you can take a short step and shoot a sniper rifle or run half the map, but then you won't even have time to draw a pistol.

Jagged Alliance 3 features about 36 mercenaries, each with a unique backstory and appearance. And they can also build relationships with you. For example, if you hire Ivan Dolvich, a representative of the old guard of Jagged Alliance, his nephew – Igor – will refuse to work with you if his uncle is treated badly.

Gears Tactics

A turn-based tactical strategy game, a spin-off of the famous Gears of War shooter series.

The events unfold 12 years before the first part, immediately after Emergence Day, when the Locust suddenly attacked humanity on the planet Sera. The developers transferred the bloody, bombastic, and dynamic action into the unhurried genre of turn-based tactics, while preserving the spirit of the original series.

The protagonist is Gabe Diaz, father of Kait Diaz, the main character of Gears 5. He receives an order from the Coalition of Governments chairman to find and destroy Ukkon – a mad Locust scientist who breeds new monsters for the invading army.

On the one hand, it's a classic "tactics" game: turn-based battles, cover, hit probability, and overwatch mode. But there are also differences.

Each fighter has three action points, and a shot does not end the turn. Locations are not divided into cells – characters move freely within a radius. And the game also has an execution system: when an enemy is wounded, they fall to their knees, and you can perform a spectacular finishing animation. It gives allies one additional action point. With the right approach, you can perform up to 7-8 actions per turn, which opens up room for experimentation and combinations.

King Arthur: Knight's Tale

A tactical RPG set in a dark fantasy world tells the story of the Knights of the Round Table fighting the undead.

The story begins after the myth of King Arthur, turning it upside down. Here you play not as a knight in shining armor, but as Sir Mordred – Arthur's sworn enemy, resurrected to save the cursed lands. The game's atmosphere is very reminiscent of Dark Souls or Diablo: no beauty, only swamps, curses, and zombie knights.

Battles in the game are turn-based, but the system turned out to be unusual. Character survivability consists of three levels: armor, health, and vitality. If the first two are clear, then when a character loses vitality, they get injured and must heal for several missions in a row after the task. And if there is no special cathedral in the camp, they will die permanently. This forces you to play very carefully.

Also, characters here don't just level up. Each of them has a loyalty indicator. If you make decisions that a particular knight doesn't like (for example, a paladin doesn't like it when you burn churches), they will get angry and may leave the squad or even attack you.

Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus

A turn-based tactical RPG in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, but without Space Marines.

The player controls the Adeptus Mechanicus – fanatical priests who worship the "Machine." They are so obsessed with technology that they replace their own bodies with bionic prosthetics.

The main character is Magos Dominus Faustinius. He receives an alarming signal: on the planet Silva Tenebris, Necrons awaken – an ancient race of sentient machines capable of destroying the Imperium. You must lead an expedition deep into their tombs to steal artifacts... before the masters fully awaken.

In Mechanicus, cognitive point management plays a crucial role. On each map, there are scattered points, being near which your Tech-Priest generates them at the beginning of each turn. This determines the number of additional actions and access to the hero's powerful abilities. Each Tech-Priest has a skill tree of six specializations, and you decide what the fighter will become.

And it's better to get acquainted with the first part than to play the second today – the sequel turned out to be frankly unfinished.

Cyber Knights: Flashpoint

The story of this turn-based tactical RPG unfolds in 2231 in the domed city of New Boston. Here, AI is forbidden, and nanotechnology and quantum computing rule. In this world, only 112 cities survived, and power now belongs to corporations. You play as a Cyber Knight, leader of a squad of mercenaries specializing in daring heists.

The plot is presented through a unique system that assigns roles in stories to specific members of your squad based on their past and actions. The dialogues are written in the best traditions of cyberpunk: with its own slang and noir atmosphere.

Characters move freely across the battlefield within their range, and turns are determined by initiative points. You can delay an ally's turn by spending 10 initiative points, adjusting the order of actions for combinations. The game encourages stealthy playthroughs. You can disable cameras, distract guards, use silencers. But if something goes wrong – you can go in openly at any moment.

Battle Brothers

This medieval turn-based tactical RPG is known for its ruthless difficulty, permadeath, and unique dark fantasy atmosphere, where every battle can be the last for your best fighter. Instead of saving the world, you control a squad of mercenaries who fight for money, food, and survival in a procedurally generated world.

The game begins with your squad falling into an ambush, and only three people escape. Your goal is simple: survive, get rich, and eventually take revenge on the traitor. The plot is non-linear – you decide which faction to fight for, whether to raid caravans or honestly fulfill contracts.

The game is divided into a strategic world map and tactical turn-based battles. You move your squad across a procedurally generated map, visit villages, take contracts, trade, seek adventures, acquire resources and equipment. Characters can get injured and die permanently, and outside of combat, the game throws text events where a choice can lead to either reward or death if you misjudge the situation.

MENACE

This sci-fi turn-based RPG takes players into space, where you command a squad of marines, mercenaries, and criminals, fighting on planets in an isolated star system.

Like Battle Brothers, the project was developed by Overhype Studios, and their gameplay is similar: permadeath of characters and deep tactical elements. But due to changes in the setting, new opportunities have also appeared – especially various vehicles.

The action takes place in a remote system, cut off from the galactic core and plunged into chaos. Power here is divided between pirate lords, corrupt corporations, and warring planetary governments.

The main character's and his squad's task is initially simple – to restore order. But it soon turns out that the system is threatened by an unknown alien force that is evolving and conquering worlds. You will have to unite warring factions and deal with what lurks in the depths of the system.

On the battlefield, in addition to the usual tactical actions, there is a suppression mechanic. Even if you miss an enemy, bullets nearby force them to take cover, reducing accuracy and initiative. This allows you to control the course of battles without killing everyone.

MENACE also has a mission tree: by choosing one task, you block access to another. For example: "Suppress air defenses to deploy tanks" or "Rescue hostages to gain local support" – this forces you to constantly sacrifice something important and think about which bonuses will be more profitable to get right now, and which later.