PC (now), Xbox/PS4/Switch (soon) •
Back when I first got into the Savage Worlds RPG system, one of the offshoots that attracted me was the Weird Wars setting. This posited that World War II wasn’t just Allies vs. Axis, but that there was a whole lot else going on such as demons, mages, etc. Players would join the Allied version of the 1940’s X-Files and root out the supernatural wherever Nazis were to be found. A few Gen Cons ago, I picked up another RPG source book for a game called Achtung! Cthulhu which was similar, but added Lovecraftian horror to the Nazi backstory instead of the generic supernatural hocus-pocus of Weird Wars. It’s kind of a strange genre considering that the Nazis don’t really need anything added to make them more evil, but, for some reason, I eat this stuff up. The Achtung! Cthulhu brand got big enough to spawn more than just an RPG and, today, Auroch Digital released a turn-based, squad-level game set in this universe, Achtung! Cthulhu Tactics.
Achtung! Cthulhu Tactics is pitched as XCOM meets…well, it doesn’t matter what it meets because anything XCOM is something I’m going to want to get my hands on. The fact that you get to build squads of Allied soldiers and blow the hell out of cultist Nazis is just icing on the turn-based cake.
In this raging Secret War across Europe, an untold darkness spreads deep beneath the Earth and throughout the Forest of Fear. The unknown lurks in the shadows and you must claim victory at any cost, because whilst Nazi factions terrorise these lands, they are not the darkest foe you face…
Behind enemy lines and tasked with overthrowing a nightmare alliance of dark science and the occult, you hold the fate of humanity in your hands. Lead your elite squad of allied forces to victory using daring tactics and cunning strategies to overthrow the Cult of the Black Sun and destroy the Mythos secrets they plan to use.
Key Features
- Tactical Combat: direct a squad of allied heroes in innovative turn-based ground battles.
- Momentum System: perform well in combat by racking up kills and executing critical hits to earn Momentum and turn the tide of battle in your favour.
- Light vs Dark: harness the power of the light to expose and suppress the spawn of Cthulhu hiding in wait in the oppressive darkness.
- AP System: every decision is important and the Action Point System gives you the flexibility to put as much emphasis into heavy combat or nimble movement as you like.
- Psychological System: witness too many horrors of war and watch as your unit’s sanity begins to unravel mid-fight.
- Build Your Team: characters have unique skills that can be unlocked and levelled up in different ways, and weapons can be modified to give a variety of benefits. This lets you customise your squad to better vanquish Nazi scum.
- Weird World War: explore the Lovecraft-meets-WW2 universe of Achtung! Cthulhu like never before with Mythos-inspired enemies and a story-driven campaign handcrafted by John Houlihan which ties directly into the pen and paper roleplaying game narrative.
Sign me up! Oh, wait, the game is only for PC so I can’t actually sign up for anything. Damn. Never fear, however, Auroch has announced that it will be heading to consoles later this year and, yes, that includes the trusty Switch.
Screenshots and vids of the game in action look a lot like XCOM and I’m definitely not counting that as a bad thing. Hell, if this was just XCOM2 with Nazi models in place of Sectoids, I’d be in. Take a look and then head to Steam.
This looks similar to Call of Cthulhu, Wasted Lands. It was pretty much the first tactical squad game I’d played on a touch screen, best thing on my old iPhone 4.
It was set in WW1 but still featured zee Germans raising the dead and calling on other dread horrors. It’s even got a fella in a turban doing mystic shit… I wonder if it shares any of the devs.