Wildermyth, a tactical turn-based RPG with a Papercraft styled design that's like a tabletop RPG mixed with XCOM has recently had some pretty huge tech upgrades.

It's already winning me over as a game, with some fantastic campaigns to play through and a style that is just amazing. However, it has struggled with a few major technical issues across both Linux and Windows. In particular, the mouse was unusable in fullscreen which has now been fully solved. The developer has recently upgraded their use of the cross-platform tech: libGDX, LWJGL and GLFW to new major versions which has made the entire experience drastically better.

Feature Highlight:

• Extreme Character Depth: Reminiscent of tabletop roleplaying, unique heroes are born in unique settings every game. They age, transform, fall in love, disagree, and make harrowing sacrifices.
• Each hero brings their own organic history and personality with them, but your choices and combat skills are what decide their paths and outcomes.
• All heroes die someday… but you get to hold on to your favorites. Reintroduce them in the next adventure, and over many lifetimes the myths you make will form your own legendary pantheon.
• An Imaginative Papercraft World

Unlike certain other turn-based tactical battlers, it's not overly punishing either. It takes a different approach to death too. You could have a character go out in a blaze of glory, or let them retreat with an injury that will change their character and how you use/interact with them. Each play-through can be wildly different too thanks to the event system, all the different character builds you can do and how there's multiple types of stories to go through. The developer, Worldwalker Games, continue expanding all the content available too and it's already got a lot of replay value to it.

If you're after a new game that mixes RPG mechanics with tactical combat, I can now happily suggest you go and take a good long look at Wildermyth. After burning out on XCOM 2 from playing far too much (great game), Wildermyth is a nice breath of fresh air. You might end up falling in love like I did.

You can pick up Wildermyth on Steam and itch.io .

The Iron Oath is an upcoming turn-based tactical RPG set in a medieval fantasy world, one where your choices matter because as you progress time flows and affects everyone including your characters.

You will be in charge of managing your own mercenary company. This includes recruiting, managing them and going together through difficult missions. Time moves with you as you progress through the game affecting character age, the world itself changes dynamically reacting to time and choices during events and overall it sounds thoroughly exciting.

Originally funded on Kickstarter in 2017, with Linux support planned, they recently had a quick bit of footage shown off in the IGN Summer of Gaming event and it's looking really slick. Take a peek below:

Watch video on YouTube.com

We managed to get a quick comment from them on Twitter , where they confirmed the Linux version is still due with the release later this year but there will be no demo for Linux during the Steam Game Festival.

Some more of what to expect from it:

• Tactical turn-based Combat : Proper planning and execution is vital to your success. Utilize the strengths and shelter the weaknesses of each unique character class. Deadly foes, traps and destructible objects means one misstep could be your party's undoing.
• Time Progression : Time passes as you navigate the world. Your characters will age and the world around you will change dynamically through various events.
• A Large and Dynamic Overworld : The known world consists of 5 unique regions and biomes, each with multiple hubs to visit. Cities can be overtaken, destroyed and rebuilt; while various factions can emerge, rise and fall. A playthrough can potentially last hundreds of years, resulting in many changes to the initial world state.
• In-depth Management : Control your company's finances, roster and happiness. Manage political relationships by forging alliances and creating enemies. As time progresses, your characters will age, retire and frequently die in combat, requiring you to recruit and train their replacements. Gain wealth and renown by completing contracts, and invest in upgrading the many facets of your organization.

If you want to learn a little more, they also had a recent interview you can watch below:

The Iron Oath can be followed on Steam .

You can see this and hundreds more crowdfunded games on our dedicated page .

Deep Sky Derelicts: Definitive Edition, a nice blending of squad management and turn-based battles with a real gritty atmosphere and some stylish graphics is out now.

"Deep Sky Derelicts: Definitive Edition features an original board game-like turn-based combat system with a unique card mechanic that makes every battle encounter feel tactically diverse. The core RPG exploration gameplay is further enriched with rogue-like elements, while the distinctive hand-drawn inky art style, heavily inspired by retro-futuristic sci-fi comic books, creates a compelling gritty world of the dark dystopian future."

This is a bundle that brings the main game and two DLC together as a whole, which replaces another bundle that only had a single DLC. However, it's much more than that (see below) but first check out the shiny new trailer available:

Watch video on YouTube.com

For everyone, it includes quite a big update to the main game even if you don't buy the bundle or any DLC. This fresh update includes gamepad support, more customization items, improved combat feedback, a reworked and polished UI, expanded tutorial tips, balance overhaul, AI updates, bug fixes, performance improvements and more. Overall, a nice bump for a game that's been out since 2018.

Feature Highlight:

• Fresh take on turn-based combat with cards
• Refined sci-fi comic book look & feel
• Endless customization options for characters and scavenging teams
• High replay value thanks to procedural generation of content
• Story of the human society divided within a dystopian universe
• Two game modes: story and arena

You can buy the x on GOG and Steam . Also on Humble Store but they currently only have the base edition and then individual DLC, they may see the Definitive Edition bundle later.

Base building, people management and you're trying to colonise Saturn's moon Titan in Titan Outpost which is now available and supported on Linux.

"It is the year 2077. Earth is slowly dying and starving for energy, and humanity has turned to the solar system to meet its ever-growing needs. The Moon has been plundered; the Chinese have begun to colonise Mars, and now the world has set its eyes on hydrocarbon-rich Titan, Saturn's sixth moon. Your employers, the International Autonomous Space Association, are desperate to claim it before the Chinese can. On frosty Titan, this war will be very cold indeed."

It originally released in August last year, with Linux support arriving across the weekend. They had private testers checking it out for a while, so hopefully it's nicely polished. Since released, they've done quite a lot of updates to it too with some big new features and improvements.

Watch video on YouTube.com

Feature Highlight:

• A hard science fiction setting inspired by Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov and Stanislaw Lem.
• An open-ended structure in which your choices define not only the course of the plot, but the fate of the world.
• A rich character-creation system, in which you define your character's attributes and develop his or her skills and gear over the course of the game.
• A robust base-building system, in which you must manage your crew, resources, and facilities to survive the harsh environment and your political rivals.
• Multiple approaches to the game's challenges: dialogue; crafting; exploration; trade; and violence are all viable ways to win.
• A rich and reactive story full of mysteries, twists, and memorable characters.​

You can find Titan Outpost on Steam .

Malus, an action RPG that puts an emphasis on the quite different combat system, with a darker theme and horror elements plus it's also now available on Linux.

This Unreal Engine powered game entered Early Access only this month, with a Linux build arriving shortly after. Combat is certainly…different. It has a slower pace to it, it feels a little more tactical as you lock onto enemies and do a weird dance around them to fight effectively and I actually quite liked it. A lot of ARPGs focus on speed and brute force, so it's interesting to see it slowed down like this.

Watch video on YouTube.com

The developer is trying to create an ARPG that "isn't yet another hack and slash", and I can certainly appreciate where they're going with it. It's quite rough, there's no getting around that and it has at least a year to go in development from the what developer said but it's quite promising with it already having a good atmosphere. Rahman Abdul said their aim it to create "an immersive, believable atmospheric environment to allow players to engage in the story we wish to tell" with a minimal UI and the horror elements that aren't like you would find in other similar games in the genre.

Once it's progressed some more, this could be a pretty good action RPG if they manage to get it polished enough. The English text needs work, the introduction needs big improvements and so on. Since it's only just come out, I'll be following along the development since it's promising.

You can find Malus on Steam .

Cyber Knights: Flashpoint from Trese Brothers, a tactical RPG set in the neon-soaked future of 2231 is now funded on Kickstarter and on the way to Linux.

"Cyber Knights wraps a world full of consequential story choices and significant character development around a rich core of classic and new mechanics. The game combines tactical elements like stealth, hacking and tense combat with strategic features like base building, contact management and in-depth squad customization"

Their Kickstarter campaign ended today on a high note with 5,041 backers pledging funds to $226,709. Considering the initial goal for the game was $50K, that's quite a finish. It actually hit that initial goal in the first 12 hours, which is pretty amazing to see for an indie game. It's likely helped that Trese Brothers have proven themselves capable developers, through multiple games already available.

Watch video on YouTube.com

Some of what to expect:

• Turn-based Tactics : Deep and tactical gameplay using a turn-based, gridless third-person combat simulator. Cover! Overwatch! Recoil!
• Dynamic Cyberpunk Story : Unique interwoven narrative with depth, meaningful player choices and hundreds of hours of gameplay
• Sophisticated Missions : Combine stealth, hacking and combat across multi-stage missions. Gain pre-mission advantages from Contacts
• Endless Builds : Experiment with endless combos of Jobs, cyberware, weapons and gadgets to build the perfect team
• Evolving Characters : Your team evolves as the story, your choices and battle leave lasting wounds, add Traits and threaten to strip their humanity
• Safehouse Base Building : Construct a custom safehouse and upgrade rooms such as weapon shop, hund kennel and medical bay.

Personally, I'm very interested in this one. This might be the next great XCOM-like, and as an avid fan of all things XCOM the whole idea of Cyber Knights: Flashpoint looks awesome. Especially since Phoenix Point abandoned Linux during Beta and then went exclusive on the Epic Store (which doesn't support Linux). Trese Brothers haven't let us down at all and their last game, Star Traders: Frontiers, was excellent and had so much depth to it you can play for weeks. I expect great things from Cyber Knights: Flashpoint.

See the finished Kickstarter here , you can also wishlist/follow on Steam .

You can see hundreds more finished crowdfunding campaigns on our dedicated page .

Tags: Steam, Upcoming, Strategy, RPG, GOG

Broken Lines, an alternate take on WWII history brings tactical RPG has a fresh trailer out for 2020, plus it seems like a release could be soon.

First, about the upcoming release, while the Steam store states "Q1 2020" it seems on the Steam forum they said this is looking like end of February. That's really close and to hype it up a bit they have a new story trailer with little bits of gameplay sprinkled in, take a look below:

Watch video on YouTube.com

The combat is certainly going to be interesting, as they're not doing a traditional turn-based approach here. You plan what each member of your crew is going to do, then watch it all happen at once when you execute you plan. Although, it will interrupt your plan when new hazards arrive so you can adjust. Not many games go for this approach, so I'm keen.

What interests me on top of that is how it's not a linear game, the developer said that you will be making certain choices that "shape the story to your liking leading to a different campaign endings". Your decisions affect not only your soldiers but the whole region, and you also need to keep your crew happy.

You can wishlist and follow on Steam , no GOG page is up yet.