Moonbreaker: The new game from the creators of Subnautica is something completely different

Subnautica creators Unknown Worlds have a new iron in the fire. But don’t expect another survival game from it, because the new project Moonbreaker goes in a completely different direction and deals with digital miniatures. It’s a Warhammer-esque game, with the studio trying to capture and represent as much of that tabletop feel virtually as possible.

Why did it become such a game? Charlie Cleveland, the founder of Unknown Worlds, is a big fan of tabletop games, it was said during a presentation of the game. After Subnautica, he now took the opportunity to develop such a game as a kind of homage to Warhammer and Co. You make a lot of decisions and do things that you would do in a normal tabletop game. But let’s start at the beginning.

Basically, Moonbreaker will offer three types of play: You can compete against the AI, against other players and in Cargo Run mode, a kind of roguelike single-player mode. In the latter, you gradually complete a series of mini-boss fights that become more and more difficult over time, and try to hold out for as long as possible. You can also pause between fights and resume later.

In Moonbreaker you design your own army

One of the most important aspects, however, is putting together your own crew, basically your army, with which you go into battle. While army might be the wrong word, it’s more of a squad, as you choose a captain – the hero characters in Moonbreaker – and ten crew members. Also important to Unknown Worlds is the aspect of painting, which is not neglected.

You have numerous options for painting your units, which come in a variety of pre-made shapes, with all sorts of colors. It doesn’t matter whether you want it to be realistic or completely colourful, it’s up to you. But there are no different levels. You can make your brush smaller and bigger, adjust the opacity and just paint on it. In this case, everything that comes under your brush will be painted. The switchable “Auto Mask” function helps you paint specific parts of the figure, such as just the weapon, without accidentally smearing everything else. Of course, as mentioned, you can also allow it if you want. Makes it even more realistic. You even have a place to mix colors together and save the result.

In any case, it looks as if tabletop fans can have a lot of fun and let off steam creatively with this alone. Individualization is generally an important point. Not only do you paint your own crew, you can also create your own banner, choose from different patterns, customize them and finally put your own name on it. Your personal mini-army is already there.

How the battles play out in Moonbreaker

Your people get down to business on the battlefields, which are not too extensive. The attention to detail is not only evident in the figures, which definitely exude a miniature feeling. Unknown Worlds’ goal was to make Moonbreaker look “as analog as possible”. On the one hand, this is achieved through the representation of the worlds. They are just as static as they would be in reality, a waterfall doesn’t move. Also there are no animations for the characters, they are absolutely fixed on their base. They kind of “hop” across the field as if someone were picking them up and moving them around.

One of the biggest differences to Warhammer is the fact that at the beginning of a battle you only start the race with your captain. Gradually you can bring in your crew using the in-game resource Cinder. You get one cinder per round and you can have a maximum of six crew members active at the same time in addition to your captain. But it is not only used for that, you have to use it strategically in order to be able to use certain abilities of the units. This is added as an additional tactical element. Do you prefer to take a new unit or does this ability help you more? Good question!

The fact is that you cannot use a unit that has just been summoned in the current turn, only in the following one. But: There are units that can remove this stun effect (for example for two Cinder), which makes them immediately ready for use. Combined with summoning, this is a relatively expensive proposition, so think carefully. Overall, of course, each unit has its strengths and weaknesses. You know the little game: If you are dealing with a melee unit, for example, it is of course better to stay at a distance and use ranged fighters against them.

In general, the goal is to reduce the enemy captain’s health to zero. As more units land on the battlefield, the matter becomes more complex and you have to consider more factors, keeping an eye on offense and defense alike. It is helpful to have a display that visually shows you with a red line as your own captain moves whether he or she is in the enemy’s line of fire at the new position or not.

Each of the clear battlefields has additional elements that you can use. Heavy cover blocks both movement and line of sight, while light cover only blocks movement and accuracy. And there are still impassable areas, which also have a negative effect on marksmanship.

Before each match, you can choose different Ship Assists, basically skills or advantages that cost you Cinder again. There are a lot of different ones to choose from, including restoring a health point to a friendly unit or dealing a point of damage to an opponent. Another Ship Assist ensures that your units can move 50 percent faster in a turn. The goal of Unknown Worlds is clearly formulated: “Every single game is different,” they say, based on the numerous possibilities and combinations.

Moonbreaker grows through Seasons but is not free-to-play

They should only get bigger over time. First of all, the creators emphasize that all captains and crew members can be unlocked through play. There will be more than 50 units (Captains, Crew and Ship Assists) at the Early Access launch, which is scheduled for September 29th. More will follow later as part of Seasons, each running for four months. Along the way, you’ll gain experience that unlocks new rewards like sticker packs, decals, crew booster boxes, banner shapes, and unit paint patterns. A special pose for a Captain beckons at the end of a reward path.

“Audio dramas”, which are released with each season and advance the background story, are intended to provide more immersion. You will get the first of these audio dramas at the start of Early Access. Among other things, they can be listened to in-game while you paint your units, otherwise they should be available wherever there are podcasts.

By the way, Moonbreaker is not a free-to-play game, you pay a fixed price for it. There is also a store in the game, but only cosmetic objects are to be sold here.

Did you expect a tabletop game from the creators of Subnautica? I don’t, but it sure looks interesting. Unknown Worlds has a clear target group in mind, but also wants to get everyone else excited about this genre. Painting the units looks fun, but if you don’t want to mess with it, you don’t have to. Otherwise you seem to be entertaining battles, overall the collection aspect could prove to be a motivating factor. To what extent the Moonbreaker succeeds, we will find out after the Early Access start…