It would have been easy to make another XCOM-alike. The strategy layer is also classic Jagged Alliance: a dynamic map that tracks and simulates both the missions you deploy your mercs on, and the enemy force's attempts to retake what was once theirs where intel you find in missions can provide hints at where and when to go to discover sidequests and opportunities.īut the real sign of Haemimont's commitment is that one seemingly small decision to upend the conventions that XCOM laid down.

And, in the spirit of the original games, they're hired diegetically-this time through an early 2000s version of the internet. Its roster of 40 mercs are all fully voiced, with personalities that may clash against each other. I've had situations where I've been on the second story of a building, fumbled a grenade, and blown up the floor beneath me. Its African setting features extreme weather effects that will change the combat simulation-in the jungle, during heavy rain, visibility is lowered, but so too is sound, giving your mercs an opportunity to be exploited. But here, it feels like Haemimont wants to get it right. The Jagged Alliance series has reemerged a few times in the last couple of decades, but never in a way that did justice to the spirit and depth of the first two games. But those are the things that happen in Jag sometimes-it just goes that way.' All the mercs fell down one floor, took fall damage and were stunned for a turn. 'Even things like weapon jam chance, or grenade fumble chance.

'It's not just chance-to-hit,' says Logston. These are games about messy, chaotic combat simulation, where unexpected things happen that force you to react. These are not games about responding perfectly to the situation. But here, Haemimont Games have discovered something that gets to the essence of what made the early Jagged Alliance's mix of turn-based combat, 4X strategy and RPG-lite management so good. Some of my favourite turn-based games of this new era are ones that give the player an overabundance of information-games like Into the Breach or Invisible, Inc., that reveal not just chance-to-hit, but fully telegraph the enemy's response as well.

Download jagged alliance 3 news