From promising mech fantasy to mixed launch
Back in 2023, Phantom Brigade sounded like a dream for tactics and mech fans. Made by Brace Yourself Games, the studio behind Crypt of the Necrodancer, it promised a cool blend of giant robots, simultaneous turns, and cinematic replays of every fight.
Visually, it nailed the vibe. Reviews praised the look of the mechs, the crunchy sense of impact when they traded shots, and the way each turn replayed like a custom action scene. Watching your plan unfold in slow motion was genuinely satisfying.
The problem was everything underneath the shiny armor. Once players and reviewers dug deeper, the cracks showed. Missions kept feeling the same, enemy AI was too simple, and the tactics layer was surprisingly easy to break. With a bit of effort, you could figure out cheesy strategies that worked over and over again. That killed a lot of the tension and long term fun.
The game landed in the "okay but not great" range. One PC review pegged it with a 68 out of 100, and the general sentiment was similar elsewhere. A lot of people saw potential, but it felt more like an early prototype of something amazing rather than the finished thing.
That could have been the end of the story. Many studios would move on to the next project and leave the game as is. But Brace Yourself Games decided to go back to the hangar instead of ejecting.
Meet Phantom Brigade 2.0: a full rebuild, not a small patch
Fast forward about two years, and Phantom Brigade has received what the studio calls a truly transformative overhaul. The 2.0 update is not a content drop or a small balance tweak. It is more like a soft relaunch that reworks almost every part of the game.
The campaign is one of the biggest winners here. Instead of running into the same mission types over and over on similar maps, there is now a wider variety of content and structure. The developers have:
- Reworked the campaign with new maps, new quests, and new combat scenarios
- Rebalanced the enemy factions so they play differently and feel more distinct
- Redesigned the overworld that your squad travels across
The world map is no longer just a backdrop between fights. You now move through entirely new provinces with more varied landscapes and fresh points of interest to find. New mechanics tie into this exploration, and the mission generation has been significantly improved. The goal is to create a world that feels alive and constantly changing, instead of a loop of copy pasted encounters.
The studio describes the vision as an environment that keeps forcing you to adapt and overcome, instead of letting you lock into one unstoppable build and coast.
Pilots, builds, and combat that finally matter
The original Phantom Brigade had cool mechs but the humans inside them barely mattered. In 2.0, that changes in a big way.
Pilots now come with over 100 unique traits and abilities. That means the people you recruit feel more like actual characters with strengths, weaknesses, and special tricks, instead of just nameless drivers for walking cannons. There is also a new recruitment mechanic and a class specialization system. Together, these features push you to think about:
- Which pilot fits which mech build
- How different abilities and traits combine in a squad
- Which characters you want to risk on a dangerous mission
The side effect is that you are much more likely to get attached to your pilots. Losing one when a plan goes wrong will hurt a lot more, which is exactly what you want from a good tactics game.
Under the hood, the team has also rebuilt a ton of systems that affect how battles actually feel. The update includes:
- New menus and mission previews so you can understand what you are walking into
- A reworked workshop and crafting system for building and tuning your mechs
- Improved damage logic and prediction, making your plans and risk calculations clearer
- A complete weapon rebalance to stop degenerate strategies such as entire squads of minigun spam
That last part might be the most important change for gameplay. When a tactics game lets you find one easy solution and repeat it forever, the whole experience collapses. By forcing you to consider position, weapon choice, pilot abilities, and enemy behavior, Phantom Brigade 2.0 is aiming to finally deliver on the tactical depth that the original concept promised.
Did it actually work and is it worth playing now
Big update posts always sound great on paper, but the real test is what players say once they get their hands on it. In this case, the signal is pretty strong.
On Steam, Phantom Brigade’s overall reviews sit in the mid 70s. But if you filter for recent reviews, after the 2.0 update, the rating jumps up to around 90 percent positive. That is a huge swing for a game that has already been out for a while.
Players are calling out many of the changes the developers highlighted. One player mentions that they started a new game for the 2.0 update and immediately noticed how much cleaner everything feels and how pilots actually matter now. Another says that replaying with the new conditions and systems is genuinely fun, not just a quick curiosity run.
If you bounced off Phantom Brigade at launch or skipped it because of the mixed reviews, this is probably the best time to take another look. The game is also currently on sale at half price, dropping it to about 15 dollars or twelve fifty in pounds, with the discount running until December 3.
Phantom Brigade will not suddenly become a different genre or a completely new game. It is still a simultaneous turn based mech tactics title with cinematic replays of each turn. The difference is that now the structure, systems, and balance are finally catching up to that amazing core idea.
If you love mechs, tactics games, or just watching a perfect plan unfold in slow motion as explosions bloom around skyscrapers, Phantom Brigade 2.0 might be the upgraded version you were waiting for.
Original article and image: https://www.pcgamer.com/games/strategy/this-mech-themed-xcom-like-just-got-a-gargantuan-update-that-overhauls-its-campaign-redesigns-its-overworld-and-adds-personalities-to-pilots-with-over-100-unique-traits/
