Deckbuilding roguelikes seem to be a subset of the genre that’s been exploding in popularity lately, and I’m all here for it. Breachway is the newest of these games to come across my desk, providing its own unique deckbuilding mechanics with a unique twist on the presentation, contextualizing our card battles as exciting space fights and our deckbuilding as modifying our ship and crew. While still in Early Access, I feel as though Breachway is already in a pretty exciting state.
As the opening paragraph suggests, Breachway is a roguelike deck builder that sees you piloting your starship and crew through various star systems in pursuit of upgrades and stronger weapons for your ship.
Each run in Breachway begins with the option to select one of a handful of ships, each one starting with its own specialized loadout as well as crew members. We’ll get into crew members in a bit, as they play a vital role in the game, but arguably, nothing is more important than the weapons and components you choose for your ship’s loadout.
Breachway’s deckbuilding mechanics are based on which parts you start with and add to your ship. Basically, your ship has several slots for equipment that can be filled with specific pieces that add cards to your deck. Each piece determines the specific cards added, with shield generators adding shield cards and flak cannons adding attack cards. Each component is a specialized piece of equipment and thus has a unique and tailored set of cards that it starts with and that you can find after combat encounters.
Adding different components to your ship adds cards to your draw pool and increases the number of cards you can draw per turn. Therefore, you need to balance having as many slots on your ship filled as possible while ensuring they synergize with each other.
As I said, each piece of equipment you put on the ship has its own pool of cards to add to your draw pile, making each function like a unique machine on your ship. What I find especially interesting is how these components contribute to the different types of attacks you can use to destroy ships.
Flak guns don’t draw laser cards, and laser cards don’t draw missiles, with each type of attack having a unique function and its own set of pros and cons. Missiles generally hit the hardest but have a delayed hit, and certain flak attacks can prevent them from hitting altogether. Flak attacks have a minimum and maximum amount of damage that they roll on before hitting but successfully hitting a ship’s hull interestingly applies a shred debuff that increases the minimum damage of the attacks. This philosophy of each component on your ship essentially building its own deck of cards applies to various types of attacks, shielding, and support. You generally want to create a synergizing deck of cards for each part you add to your ship.
I am really impressed by the way the game translates the fantasy of spaceship battles through both the visuals and the card game mechanics. Something that especially immerses me in the ship-on-ship conflict of the game is the ability to target and disable different components on the enemy ship, usually by focusing on them with targeted beam attacks. It reminds me of every sci-fi movie where someone exclaims, “They’ve destroyed our shield generator!” or something along those lines.
The game also mimics every “forward power to the laser cannons!” moment from Star Trek by allowing you to reallocate the rate at which your card-casting resources, of which you have three, are restored each turn. These rates can also be modified outside of battle and permanently upgraded through resources you earn by fighting.
Your ship’s crew also plays an important role in the battles in Breachway, with each member offering different abilities that can be cast using a separate resource called morale. These abilities can be anything from quick boosts to your shields, drawing cards, or increasing the damage of a specific attack type for a turn, making them one of your arsenal’s most powerful synergy tools. Morale is an interesting resource that cannot be recovered during a fight and is restored at a rate depending on the actions you choose on the campaign map.
The campaign map is also interestingly split among several factions, all of which have their own ships and events and, most importantly, their own relationship with you and your crew. Your relationship is tracked based on your encounters with these factions and determines what happens when you pass over one of their tiles, with nearly every part of the map belonging to one of them. Having a hostile ranking with one faction will cause them to attack you on their tiles, while a friendlier faction will allow you to go in peace, give you rewards, or even activate special events. I found myself playing as an opportunistic scoundrel, helping when I could and betraying whoever it was convenient to betray, above all else, taking every battle I could find in the hopes of further upgrading my ship.
I really have no real criticisms for Breachway. It’s a great deckbuilding roguelike even in its Early Access state, providing not only a well-designed card game but also a really interesting and immersive way to frame it. I would like to see even more ships and mechanics included in the future. Still, even now, the game feels really packed with content and challenging enough that mastering any specific playstyle or ship will undoubtedly take some real investment.
Pros:
- A great card game with an immersive presentation of its mechanics
- Interesting faction and map mechanics
- Lots of variety in cards, ships, and crew to keep your playstyle flexible
Cons:
- The great variety of ships, ship parts, crew, and mechanics leaves you wanting even more
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