Into the Breach lands on Nintendo Switch

PC strategy roguelike Into The Breach has launched on the Nintendo Switch today. Developed by Subset Games, developer of FTL: Faster Than Light, it was initially released on PC in February 2018. The game has now shown up on the Nintendo Store, and is just as good as it was in its initial release.

Into The Breach is a turn-based strategy game, albeit with some quirks. Each map is just 8×8 tiles, with your three units dropped into the map at the beginning. Enemy unit attacks are telegraphed . As a result, the strategy is not to guess what the enemy will do, but to use attacks and the environment to ensure that enemies miss or are killed before they hurt you or human cities.

Players must hold off enemy invaders for a set number of turns, whilst completing optional objectives for bonus rewards. As a roguelike game, players unlock new pilots, weapons and mechs throughout the game that can be used in future playthroughs. We gave Into The Breach a positive very review earlier this year, which you can read here.

Into The Breach’s Switch port itself is excellent. The performance is fantastic, and it overall feels very natural in both portable and docked mode. The user interface is redone to suit the Switch’s controls and screen size. Different actions, like healing and different weapons, are mapped organically to the Switch’s face and shoulder buttons. The only thing missing that some may have wanted is touch screen support. However, I found the regular controls intuitive enough that I didn’t miss the lack of a touch interface.

Into The Breach is especially well-suited to the Switch, as its short missions and ability to quicksave at any time make it good for playing on the go. It definitely feels like it has found a good home on Nintendo’s hybrid platform. Hopefully this will signal the coming of more turn-based strategy games in the future, as there definitely needs to be more. Otherwise, maybe a Switch port of FTL: Faster Than Light?

Nonetheless, this is definitely a great sign of Nintendo’s strong support for high-quality indie games . It is good to see many great indie titles find new life on the Switch platform, especially games like Into The Breach, which benefit from the portable experience.