Preview of Moonbreaker: round tactics with tabletop feeling – including downsides

Subnautica studio Unknown Worlds is getting ready to lure the Warhammer nerds of this world out of their hobby cellars and into their home PCs to put the team’s new prank, Moonbreaker, through its paces. The science fiction strategy title is currently in Early Access and uses tabletop strategy games such as Warhammer 40K and trading card games from the Magic: The Gathering brand in terms of art design and gameplay. Because Unknown Worlds intends to establish the brand as a serious digital alternative, input from the target group is of course priceless. Even if the title is primarily aimed at newcomers.

Battle of the Captains

A short explanation for everyone who has not yet had any contact with such systems: In terms of gameplay, Moonbreaker is a classic turn-based strategy. Unlike XCOM or Heroes of Might and Magic, however, units do not move on a grid system, but rather freely in a limited radius around their current position.

Our squad is also not fully operational at the start of a game. Instead, we have to gradually buy our army together with points and place it around our main unit in the game world. A game ends when the leader of the enemy army is defeated. These space captains are special units with more health points, of which there are three to choose from in the game. Each character has specific skills that also cost us points, while movement and attack are free and can be performed once per turn.

At the beginning of the game we are given three randomly compiled pairings of powerful special abilities to choose from, which we can use to turn the tide of battle in our favor. These include instant healing of a unit or an orbital strike that damages enemies in an area.

Abilities like this area attack can be used multiple times after a cooldown and are chosen from a random pool at the beginning of the game.

Source: PC Games




The number of skills and synergies is still manageable. But that makes it easier to get started. After a few hours of play, we know all the unit abilities and status effects and start developing strategies. However, we shouldn’t commit too much to one way of playing. Due to the asymmetrical nature of the match-ups and the random selection of maps and special abilities, flexibility is required.

Who makes the first move is just as random as the units that are initially available for call from our army. This is very reminiscent of card games like Magic, where we also can’t choose which creatures we have in our hand at the beginning of the game. So it can happen that only units that cost a lot of points are ready and we have to wait several turns before we can send them into battle, which allows the enemy to corner us.

Except for basic attacks and movement, each action costs Cinder. If you only have extremely strong units in your army, you have to wait a few rounds until they are affordable.

Source: PC Games




In the version we played, the tutorial was still quite sparsely equipped with information that goes beyond movement, combat skills and clarification of terms, which is why it was a bumpy start for us. Since the last Early Access update, Unknown Worlds is said to have been able to remedy the situation at the request of the community.

After each completed match, we receive experience points with which we gradually unlock items, including units, in-game currency or character designs. What we are working towards apparently depends on the current season, but a paid season pass is not planned, at least in the early access phase.
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