After playing Miasma Chronicles for 10 hours, it’s clear to me: fans of the tactical role can’t let go

You may not know the name bearded plumbersalthough it is more likely that you have heard of its most famous video game: Mutant Year Zero. It took everything that was great about Xcom and went a step further by emphasizing stealth and exploration and telling an interesting story in a post-apocalyptic world and, unsurprisingly, adoring fans of the gender. tactical role.

Five years after its launch on PC and consoles, the Swedish studio The Bearded Ladies is about to publish a new game similar to the previous one but which wants to be better in almost every aspect. Last week I had the pleasure of visiting their offices in Malmö, chatting with some of the developers e even play the first 10 hours of Miasma Chronicles. And I can assure you that I didn’t expect to go home so surprised.

A game I didn’t see coming and is already on my radar

If I’m being completely honest with you, I’ve barely come into contact with tactical RPGs like this. A few years ago I made my first forays into the genre through great references such as xcom oh Rabbids Marioso I wasn’t sure what to expect from an AA play like Miasma Chronicles.

Luckily, most of my doubts were dispelled the moment I sat down, put on my headphones, and clicked start game. that’s when I thought: “Okay, this game is really fun and got me hooked from the start.”

Logically, the first thing that usually catches our attention in a game is its graphics, and in my case, Miasma Chronicles was no exception. New in bearded women looks really good and has quite detailed scenes that you would surely not expect from a role-playing and strategy game. The post-apocalyptic world in which the protagonists live is “ugly”, it is full of bric-a-brac and pessimism and still managed to captivate me thanks to its fantastic art direction based on science fiction (which, saving the differences, slightly reminded me of Death Stranding in some ways).

If it is true that the game will be released on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X | S next May 23, I did not expect to find such a neat construction and devoid of errors that affected my experience while playing the game. Yes, I encountered some things that could be fixed at a technical level, such as irregularities in performance or longer than usual loading times, however, the feeling that stayed in my body is that of being in front of a practically finished product.

During the test, the developers told us that they were big fans of the great classics of Japanese role-playing games such as Final Fantasy oh Xenogearssomething that is quite noticeable in the story of its latest video game. Miasma Chronicles centers on the journey of a handful of charismatic characters who must travel through different regions in search of something that will ultimately lead them to “save the world”.so don’t expect a particularly innovative narrative either.

Of course, I’ll always say that in these kinds of pre-launch impressions, it’s very hard to talk good or bad about the games plot, world-building, or the characters themselves. What I’m trying to do with these is convey the general feelings that the start of the campaign left me with, and although I don’t think this is going to present us with a memorable story, his world seemed quite interesting to me you might as well want to know how the odyssey of Elvis and his robot brother Diggs and the secret of the mysterious Miasma (a substance present all over the planet) continues.

Stealth, challenges, exploration and looting

At the playable level, the first thing I would like to clarify is that Miasma Chronicles is a fairly accessible tactical role-playing game, but it knows how to be very demanding when it wants to.. Enemies are tougher than they look and are difficult to deal with when they arrive in groups, so it is very important to prepare well before each skirmish and to think carefully about where to move a character or to which target to shoot next.

I lost count of the times I got to the “Game Over” screen. and despite everything, I hardly felt the frustration that other equally demanding works can generate in you. On the contrary, I was want to load the game to try other tacticsapproaches and ambushes that could offer victory, and that’s where Miasma Chronicles shines.

Besides each character has unique abilities which can be unlocked by using experience points. For example, Elvis can manipulate Miasma, Jade can use fire in her shots, Diggs can cover her allies, etc. All of them are good ingredients to form a solid gameplay with a great strategic component.

Especially I would like to highlight the approach given to stealth. It’s very common these days for almost every video game to have an element like this, but here it works like a charm thanks to the introduction of Jade, a young sniper rifle expert and who has a silencer that lets you eliminate enemies without alerting everyone.

I’ll give you an example so that you better understand what I want to explain to you:

• To achieve your objective, you must cross an area where about 6 frogmen are patrolling
• If the only option to cross is to kill everyone, it is better to start by stealthily eliminating the “lonely” and weakest units
• In special cases you can throw bottles or activate lures drive an enemy away from his companions
• Then Jade can shoot them with her silenced rifle and kill them in one shot without drawing the attention of others.
• And voila, when you enter battle with the others, the enemy group will be much smaller than at the beginning and your chances of winning will increase.
• If you manage to find several silencers, you can even do so with other party members and wipe out more powerful creatures.

Somehow I felt that Miasma Chronicles is a video game that gives you a lot of freedom in the face of missions, both in combat and in the exploration of scenarios. The world map is large and consists of several smaller maps where you can loot items such as healing kits or grenades or Plasticthe currency used to purchase materials from stores.

And I already warn you that the demand for filming is also present in the most everyday moments of gameplay. As it’s a ruined world, resources are scarce and it’s expensive to pay for good weapons or useful components, so searching every corner and solving puzzles on stage can be the key to finding treasure chests with really important items to enhance the party.

One of the covers of 2023?

When I talk to people about Miasma Chronicles, they usually don’t know what video game I’m referring to, and hopefully after reading this article I can change that perception a bit. New in women with beards it has everything to become a great tactical role-playing game which will appeal to both Xcom fans and new players who want to get into turn-based strategy and combat.