Another Steam Next Fest has come and gone, and like every other I’ve participated in, I’ve made a point to seek out great titles that typically would fly under my radar. This time around, I didn’t have the chance to delve too deeply into many games, but one of them stood out amongst the rest: Tactical Breach Wizards.
A tactical RPG starring wizards and warlocks that plays a lot like Into the Breach, Tactical Breach Wizards is a near-perfect alien invasion tactics game developed by the same guys who did the stellar FTL: Faster Than Light.
Due to a love of Fire Emblem from a young age, I’m a sucker for anything turn-based and tactical, so I wasn’t surprised that Tactical Breach Wizards hooked me pretty much immediately. The demo — and the entire game — opens with two wizards, decked out in army gear, assaulting a boat full of druids because of course wizards and druids don’t get along. One of the wizards, Zan, can see into the future, and the other, Liv, has the powerful ability to transcend time. As they banter back and forth, they eventually decide to breach the door with a magical glyph, beginning the tutorial.
While Liv isn’t a playable character — and appears to be the primary antagonist — the genius of Tactical Breach Wizards comes from Zan’s ability to predict what’s going to happen, letting you try out different scenarios and rewind time if the round doesn’t go your way. A round leaves an enemy alive that blasts you out of the window? Rewind time and shoot them out of the window first. This reminded me immediately of the puzzle-like design of Into the Breach.
The tutorial concludes with Liv’s capture before jumping forward in time, introducing a second protagonist named Jen. Much in the same way Zan is a soldier and a wizard, Jen works as a private investigating witch who recently failed to stop a murder. The police station she’s in is attacked by some pyromancers, triggering her escape and team-up with Zan. As it turns out, those pyromancers work with Zan’s former teammate, Liv, and this is where Tactical Breach Wizards hints at the depth of gameplay you’d expect from the genre.
You see, Zan can prepare to fire a shot by predicting the future, and Jen is all about pushing enemies around the map. To take out more powerful foes, such as police officers with riot shields, you’ll need to push them into Zan’s predictive shot — or blast them out of a window. There’s a lot of defenestration in this game and, much like how Into the Breach has you interrupt spawning monsters, magically sealing off doors to stop the influx of enemies. It’s all very clever, with each short stage offering small twists or challenges to overcome.
After a handful of cleverly designed levels that made the most of Zan and Jen’s abilities, along with a healthy amount of tongue-in-cheek humor, I grew genuinely interested in Zan and Jen’s quest to stop the time-hopping Liv, mostly because the characters are endearingly and hilariously written. Their mission led to the demo’s final battle which saw the duo taking on Steve, a traffic warlock. Yes, a warlock that summons ghosts while directing traffic as a day job. And wouldn’t you know it, the ghosts he summons are in the form of massive trucks.
According to Jen, Steve’s a bit of a dick, and I agree with her after avoiding his massive, room-clearing attacks while magically sealing off reinforcements from giving him a hand. Defeating him gave me a glimpse at some promising difficulty, as up until that point, I made quick work of each challenge but couldn’t take down Steve without rewinding time a half dozen times to get through unscathed.
I came away keen on playing more when it releases later this summer, noting that each stage incites replays with specific goals for either character (defenestrate five enemies, take no damage, etc.) that I know I’d want to achieve. It wasn’t until the demo concluded that I learned there are five wizards that eventually join your little magical squad. Here I was happy with two wizards with different kits — but the strategic possibilities that come with five? That fact alone makes Tactical Breach Wizards one of my most anticipated titles of this already-packed summer and one of the more promising titles I’ve played during a Steam Next Fest event.
Tactical Breach Wizards is set to release on PC on August 22, 2024. You can play a demo now on Steam.
