Digital Boardgame Armored Freedom Hitting Steam EA

PC/Mac •

Aristotle’s ontological legacy can be summed up in a single, irrefutable truism:

Man can never have too many mech games. No such state exists.

Such sagely observation continues to ring through the ages. The battlesuit-besotted have a lot to look forward to. Tetragonworks’ Phantom Brigade (which is utterly ace), Valkyria Chronicles-dated-Armored Core Dual Gear by Orbital Speed Studio (also ace), Harebrained Studios’ Battletech (should be ace) as well as a bunch of other titles like Bombdog’s Chromehounds successor, MAV and the tungsten-tough isometric magic of Stellar Jockeys’ Brigador. And so on and so on.

The god of iron and autocannon continues to smile upon us, as Armored Freedom gears up for Steam Early Access.

As I’m still riding high on discovering that fan update for the Cyberstorm mech TBS titles of yesteryear, Killer Bees Games‘ mechanised cocktail of FASA and Front Mission makes it an easy sell. Here’s the spiel:

Armored Freedom is an intense strategy board game where giant robots fight for dominance.
Roll the dice to charge and wage war using battle cards. Unveil hidden secrets within special action cards. Entrust your freedom to heavy armor in single-player and multiplayer matches.

Armored Freedom takes place in a world where wars are fought with giant mechs.

Roll the dice to move your mechs and crush your enemies with battle cards in turn-based, boardgame-style gameplay.

Fight across four distinctive terrains: forest, desert, snow and urban style boards.

Customize your pilot and mech. Increase your rank and win medals. Unlock unique items and recruit heroes with special abilities.

Wage epic single and multiplayer battles across four different gameplay modes.

Despite the perfunctory pitch, poring over the screenies and video footage has me giddy. Looking like a rather pleasant collision between the aforementioned Dynamix’ mech-sorry-HERC hexer, with the kind of bulky, boxy, assembly line-aesthetic of Squaresoft’s Front Mission series, I can forgive any fluid animation or presentation shortcomings. Card-driven elements don’t hurt, either.

Given they’re going for the whole digital boardgame vibe, we can presume concepts like terrain modifiers will come into effect, but just how deep it all goes is anyone’s guess. We will however find answers to these pertinent questions very soon. At the time of writing, gearheads are twenty-four hours away from Gabe Newell raising the blast doors and letting Armored Freedom lumber into our battlespace.

Stay tuned to this frequency.

Liked it? Take a second to support Stately Play on Patreon!