MENACE

Overhype Studios earned a devoted following with Battle Brothers, a medieval mercenary-band tactics game widely regarded as one of the genre's finest independent achievements. MENACE, which entered Steam Early Access on 5 February 2026, trades that game's low-fantasy grit for a far-future frontier under threat from an unknown alien enemy — and it arrives carrying the specific, considerable weight of that pedigree. Very Positive across more than 11,000 Steam reviews, it largely lives up to it. Understanding both why that reputation holds and where a real, specific, widely-shared set of Early Access growing pains sit is what this review sets out to do.

A genuinely fresh spin on a beloved formula

The dominant comparison across the review sample is to XCOM and Jagged Alliance, and reviewers consistently credit MENACE with meaningfully improving on both rather than simply imitating them. "All the little things have annoyed me from decades of playing XCOM and Jagged Alliance are carefully and intelligently fixed in this. I'm super impressed with the choices made," one detailed review states. Another, more concise: "This is the intersection of XCOM and a tabletop wargame, and is better than either in many regards." A reviewer with an unusually credentialed vantage point frames the achievement plainly: "I've been playing video games for about 45 years, and I also work in the industry professionally... I don't write reviews for everything I play, but Menace is one of the rare exceptions." The combined-arms design — infantry squads alongside tanks and walkers, with a substantial equipment and training layer between missions — draws real, specific praise for depth beyond its combat encounters alone.

Presentation earns consistent credit too. "Killer audio and voice acting. Game looks sick. Laser rifle animations are unreasonably cool," one review notes, a sentiment echoed broadly across the sample regarding sound design and combat feedback specifically.

The complaint that crosses the recommendation line

What distinguishes MENACE's reception from a simple positive/negative split is how consistently the same specific mechanical complaints appear on both sides. The most frequently cited is the game's Supply Limit system, which caps how much equipment and how many characters a player can bring on any given mission. "For a game that is entirely built around leveling up and improving a handful of units, the game just straight chokes you from the get go," one review states, a frustration echoed by numerous others describing the early game specifically as unusually punishing because of it.

Timed secondary objectives draw an even more consistent, cross-cutting complaint. "Time limits as a general concept in a tactical game are a no go for me. If I want to" play carefully and methodically, several reviewers argue, the game's round-limit bonus objectives actively work against that instinct. "Love the game but the turn limit bonus objectives kill the vibe for me," one concise review states, while a more detailed critique from a reviewer who otherwise praises the game extensively puts it directly: "Dislike that missions are timed despite it being a turn-based game. Dislike that player is rushed and incentivized to complete the mission as fast as possible instead of [being] reward[ed for cautious] play." What makes this complaint worth taking seriously as a load-bearing finding, rather than one vocal minority's preference, is how often it surfaces unprompted across reviews that ultimately land on a positive recommendation — a genuine, specific design tension rather than a simple bug.

A related, separate complaint concerns the AI, described repeatedly as feeling unfair in one specific way while unchallenging in another. "The AI is only 'challenging' because it is cheating: it is always aware of detection and range circles even if it does not see your units," one detailed review states, while a separate reviewer frames the flip side of the same issue: "the AI doesn't pose a tactical challenge in most cases. Its main challenge is from the number of units" thrown at the player rather than genuine tactical sophistication.

Real, honest Early Access limitations

Separate from the design-tension complaints, a smaller thread concerns straightforward Early Access incompleteness. Mission and enemy variety draws specific criticism as repetitive over extended play — "same missions, same enemies, same enemy behaviours, same missions, same map layouts," one review states bluntly, adding the caveat that this specifically stems from Early Access content limits rather than a fundamental design flaw. A more practical complaint concerns the lack of a functional mid-mission save: "missions can run for 30-60 minutes and real life won't always wait unfortunately," one review states, describing it as a genuine dealbreaker rather than a minor inconvenience given the format's typical session length.

A studio that's demonstrably still working on it

To Overhype's credit, checking the developer's own communications directly confirms an unusually dense, sustained post-launch cadence rather than a launch-and-abandon pattern. Ten numbered hotfixes, several substantial content patches, and fifty numbered public dev diaries had shipped by late July 2026, six months after launch. Critically, some of that work responds directly to the community's most consistent complaints: a dedicated "SL Update 1" — addressing the Supply Limit system multiple reviewers singled out — shipped in June 2026 alongside new custom difficulty options explicitly designed to let players tune the experience to their preferred pace. That's concrete, dateable evidence the studio is engaging with exactly the tensions this review's sample raises, even if it hasn't fully resolved the underlying timed-mission design philosophy some players fundamentally disagree with. Several reviewers who playtested the game pre-launch specifically credit this responsiveness: "I can't say enough how amazing the Overhype team has been. They're SO on top of things, making changes, fixing balancing," one such review states.

Where this leaves a buyer

At NZ$59.99, MENACE delivers a genuinely well-crafted, combat-forward turn-based tactics game that earns its Very Positive standing on the strength of its core systems and Overhype's clear talent for this genre — the comparisons to XCOM and Jagged Alliance, and the consistent praise for improving on both, are well-earned. The honest, necessary caveat, raised specifically and repeatedly by reviewers across the recommendation spectrum, concerns two connected design choices: a Supply Limit system that feels needlessly restrictive, particularly early on, and timed mission objectives that a substantial share of the game's own admirers argue undercut the deliberate pace the genre depends on. Both are real, current concerns rather than settled history, and Overhype's sustained, responsive patch cadence gives real reason for confidence that Early Access will keep meaningfully narrowing that gap. Fans of the genre and of Battle Brothers specifically are well placed to enjoy what's here now, with realistic expectations about the rough edges still being sanded down.