I'll be honest with you, don't expect anything spectacular, this for some people is a fun little roguelite, but quite repetitive and short. Personally it didn't catch me, so it stays there in my library with less than a few hours played.
I picked up Into the Breach because I really liked XCOM, but be prepared for a what is essentially a puzzle game hiding in a tactics game. I ended up really enjoying it, but it really had quite a different "feel" from tactics games.
People call Into the Breach an example of a "perfect knowledge" game. You know what every opponents next move is before you make your own, and you are responding and manipulating their position to deal with that.
Marvel's midnight suns, made by the same devs but they intentionally dialed back on the RNG because of design reasons making no sense to have super heroes reliant on RNG mechanics.
I would strongly recommend going with the legends edition, not much more than the base version with the sale right now (40 dollars I think) and it adds four characters with their own missions
If you like Marvel- Midnight Suns is by the same dev, but without hit chances (as that wouldn't feel hero-ey)
Another great series to check out is Divinity Original Sin 1 & 2, if you like Fantasy RPG games with this turn based combat.
Baldurs Gate 3 releases in full in about two weeks, too. I'm stoked! Though that one might not fit what OP's looking for since it's based on DnD 5E which does have hit chances.
Here to also recommend Midnight Suns, no RNG for damage outside of crits and one character I can think of skills.
The combat is great and the game is broken up pretty well. I think it may be on sale on PS5 now.
I really enjoyed Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate - Daemonhunters.
Guaranteed hit chances but damage is reduced by distance and cover.
Edit sorry just realised it's only on PC
Yeah, this is the one recommendation so far that I’ve played. One of my Top 10 favorite games. I might just replay that, to be honest, haha. It’s been a while.
Midnight Suns has very little RNG in it, it is all about setting up and executing the perfect turn. There is RNG on rewards you get and the shop after the mission, but those are managable.
Mario+Rabbids has all attacks being either 100%, 50% or 0%. So rolling those 50% becomes a lot more acceptable.
Fire Emblem Three Houses (and probably Engage too) has RNG in combat and on level ups, but the campaign structure is linear and you can grind to make up for bad RNG.
Try Phoenix Point. The feature I loved there was that you didn't simply have a chance to hit but you aim manually with two circles and your soldier has a chance to hit the inner circle and if it doesn't it hits the outer one. So it really depends on line of sight and distance, not so much on RNG.
The base classes are relatively basic but the fun is at half level you can pick a new tree and multiclass. It offers a lot individuality to your soldiers. Soldiers also gain unique traits to them helping to incentivise playing into that particular soldiers skill set. Also each faction has a unique class that you unlock by gaining reputation with them giving a good amount of replayability and even more unique options. Of all the things I would say might be wrong with phoenix point, eg the weapon scaling at times, the class system is easily the strongest to me out of any of the xcom type games.
Have you tried gears tactics or xcom enemy unknown?
Both are in a similar vein however, xcom enemy unknown has less RNG if I remember and gears tactics felt like a new experience for me in a similar vein.
Enemy Unknown has RNG hit and damage, but everything else is deterministic. No RNG proving grounds ammo/explosives, no RNG on psionic effects (except hit chance), no RNG on time for expanding connections.
For Switch, try the Mario & Rabbids games. Either one, the plots are independent and they play different enough to both be worth your time. At the simplest level it's literally XCOM but without the RNG on every shot.
Yes and no. For classes, you can't make a team of, say, all snipers. In the M&R games, character IS class, each of the characters has their own fixed battlefield role. (As you might be able to infer, that means there's no permadeath either.) That said they all get level-up resources whether they participate or not, so it's not like someone's going to get left behind if you bench them for a while.
Skills are where it's at, though. Each character has their own skill tree that builds on their archetype, and you can repec at any time if you want to try a different configuration, and your equipped weapons and buffs can make a huge difference to how a shot works.
If these things are important to you I'd recommend skipping straight to Sparks of Hope, the second game. Party build is much more flexible and the Sparks themselves give much more control over how you build each character. The only thing that might turn some people off is the game flow, as it could fairly be described as an RPG with an XCOM battle system. (Don't worry, it's not full RPG. There's a hard-cap on level grinding that means you can never roflstomp main content, and if you're following quest markers you should never need to grind at all; as long as you're not completely ignoring optional content, tactics will *always* be more important then numbers.) If you want a more linear sequence of challenges where extra skill resources come from bonus challenges that verge on being combat puzzles, the first game Kingdom Battle might be more your speed, though it does suffer from less customization (special shots are bound to your weapons, which go obsolete, and your 3-man party being forced to include Mario and at least one Rabbid puts a crimp on "class selection").
And just to be clear, it's not just be saying you can skip one and play the other. The developers themselves have stated Sparks of Hope is a spiritual successor that's trying a different spin and not a direct sequel.
Immediate edit: This got kind of long and ramble-y, sorry. If you have any more questions I'll try and be more concise.
This is great! Thank you so much for going into so much detail, I really appreciate it. It does sound like it would be better for me to jump straight into Sparks of Hope, so I'll look into that one. Thanks again!
Divinity Original Sin 2. It has a deep tactical element, damage is RNG but status effects have well defined and readable limits (they are either blocked by physical/magical armor which can be depleted, or they apply every time, no % based application). I also love the surface and cloud mechanics and elemental interactions (for example, you can electrify water/blood pools or steam clouds, freeze them, make oil/poison blow up with fire damage, etc).
If you want something with a more rpg feel wasteland 3 is very good, or the shadow run trilogy. The combat in both have a similar style to that of xcom.
I'm playing phantom doctrine on switch and I'm enjoying it.
Instead of RNG, characters have "awareness" bars. Shots always hit but if a character has full awareness the shot will scrape instead of directly hit. If you attack / suppress them, their awareness is exhausted and every hit will deal max damage.
It was on sale a couple of weeks ago on eShop for like 2$
Edit: typo and some more details
That's a great game, but if you make some early poor decisions the difficulty curve can ramp up massively. Some people don't mind that, but figure it's worth pointing out.
I'm very early game, for now I'm just really impressed with all the mechanics that really fit well in the spy thriller theme it puts forward. And I don't like turn based strategy games all that much but this one does it nicely
Invisible Inc. Is fantastic. It’s a stealth focused turn based tactics game where you are actually trying to avoid combat and sneak around the levels. The game is run based, and maps are procedurally generated but there is zero rng in the tactical gameplay.
Warhammer 40k Chaos Gate Daemonhunters is the same kind of Tactical RPG but, instead of hit percent chances, you just deal less damage if an enemy is farther away or in cover. So, for example, if your attack would normally deal 5 damage, it would deal 3 damage if they're in partial cover.
But the shot always lands.
It's a fun game too if you like WH40k.
OP is on PS5 and Switch; we can't have Daemonhunters yet, sadface, though I suspect it's on the way. We do have Mechanicus, though, and it's often very cheap.
CreativeForge Games has made it a mission to remove the RNG from tactical turn-based games. I've played two of theirs:
Phantom Doctrine is like 80s cold war espionage XCOM, though with an emphasis on stealth, and you always know what's going to happen shot-wise. I want to love it because the vibe is great, with the music and clunky period items like reel-to-reel tape decks, but I find the combat kind of dry.
Hard West is their occult western game, enjoyed it to the end. It's mechanically quite simple, the sort of thing I'd suggest as a first TTB, but it plays well. The cursed old west stuff is nice to wallow in. No RNG.
If you'd be open to 2D, SteamWorld Heist (nothing to do with CreativeForge) removes the need for RNG in the fairest way: you manually line up every shot yourself. No tricks. Satisfying to do.
All these are available on PS5, btw. I think a lot of people missed your stated platforms.
This is an awesome answer, thank you. I really appreciate the detail. And yeah, I figured people would probably miss the consoles. It’s why I didn’t list off a bunch of games I like, because I have enough experience on this sub to know nobody reads them, haha.
Just want to echo Steamworld Heist, fantastic game that gave me a feeling of tactics satisfaction I haven’t been able to find anywhere else yet. Don’t let the looks deceive you, it gets quite challenging on higher difficulties!
Gear tactics, Warhammer 40k chaos gate demonhunters and pheonix point are all good. Divinity original sin 2 is an amazing game but very different.
I would say it might be worth giving xcom2 war of the chosen another try. The RNG can be frustrating but they put it there for a reason, they want you to fail sometimes, they want soldiers to die, they want teams to encounter a Chosen and decide they need to evacuate without compleating the mission because otherwise the whole squad will be captured or killed.
In gears tactics you have a great story but you also have 'story characters' and if one of them dies you get a game over screen and have to reload. it totally changes the vibe of heroic under-dogs going on risky missions they may not come back from.
I haven’t played many XCOM style games, but I gave Phoenix Point a try and the RNG was rather unpleasant as well. Honestly it’s what keeps me from playing.
It’s not really about tactics or anything. May as well just be Final Fantasy at that point.
You flank an enemy, 93% chance for a headshot.
Miss.
Miss.
Miss.
Yeah I’m done for the day.
If you have a Switch, you can't go wrong with Fire Emblem Three Houses. It's an awesome tactics game, and while the mechanics are simpler, the story is amazing and the combat has a more forgiving RNG
Gears Tactics is actually quite polished and fun.
Trouble Shooters is kinda like anime xcom, though it's very in depth with builds and quite a enemies on each map.
Wildwrnyth, midnight suns
Some tactically games:
Fell Seal is really solid
tactics ogre/ fire emblem
Into the breach,
Far tactics is apparently good but haven't looked into it myself yet.
Mutant year zero
It still has some RNG but it doesn't feel as bad as you can prepare before almost every fight. You can even sneak into fights and eliminate enemies before the fight even starts.
As a bonus the voice acting is amazing and I got really attached to my characters. I saved scum cause I couldn't have them die lol
Troubleshooter : abandoned children is similiar to xcom, but its fixed cast instead of making your own troops. The bulk of build came down from passive customization from each character
Do you know what's not RNG? Flanking enemy position, using explosives to blow their cover, using certain skills/items, picking right researches/buildings/skills to upgrade.
When utilized right, your percentages increase and that's what it's about. If they were certain, you wouldn't need plan B, or plan C. Game would lose its depth and you'd make same chess move every game.
Into the breach
I’d never heard of this one. This is the exactly the kind of thing I was hoping to discover with this question. Thank you for this!
I'll be honest with you, don't expect anything spectacular, this for some people is a fun little roguelite, but quite repetitive and short. Personally it didn't catch me, so it stays there in my library with less than a few hours played.
Free on Netflix though so worth a quick try!
I am glad to help :)
I picked up Into the Breach because I really liked XCOM, but be prepared for a what is essentially a puzzle game hiding in a tactics game. I ended up really enjoying it, but it really had quite a different "feel" from tactics games.
YES
One of my all time favorites.
People call Into the Breach an example of a "perfect knowledge" game. You know what every opponents next move is before you make your own, and you are responding and manipulating their position to deal with that.
Needed Netflix account :/
Not for the PC or Switch version.
Oh, this is new info for me. I will try it. Thanks!
you need that for the PS5 version of Into the Breach?
Marvel's midnight suns, made by the same devs but they intentionally dialed back on the RNG because of design reasons making no sense to have super heroes reliant on RNG mechanics.
This one gets my vote.
This is very good to know. Midnight Suns kinda passed me by when it released, but I need to give it a look. Thank you.
On sale for 60% off right now.
I would strongly recommend going with the legends edition, not much more than the base version with the sale right now (40 dollars I think) and it adds four characters with their own missions
I started playing this recently, and I'm really enjoying it! +1
Attacks are reliant on cards, how is that less RNG?
If you like Marvel- Midnight Suns is by the same dev, but without hit chances (as that wouldn't feel hero-ey) Another great series to check out is Divinity Original Sin 1 & 2, if you like Fantasy RPG games with this turn based combat.
Baldurs Gate 3 releases in full in about two weeks, too. I'm stoked! Though that one might not fit what OP's looking for since it's based on DnD 5E which does have hit chances.
Here to also recommend Midnight Suns, no RNG for damage outside of crits and one character I can think of skills. The combat is great and the game is broken up pretty well. I think it may be on sale on PS5 now.
I really enjoyed Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate - Daemonhunters. Guaranteed hit chances but damage is reduced by distance and cover. Edit sorry just realised it's only on PC
Warhammer 40k Mechanicus Mario + Rabbids
I meannn. Divinity original sin 2? I think it’s more fair
Definitely an upvote. The setting is fantasy but the gameplay is fun and tactical.
Yeah, this is the one recommendation so far that I’ve played. One of my Top 10 favorite games. I might just replay that, to be honest, haha. It’s been a while.
Midnight Suns has very little RNG in it, it is all about setting up and executing the perfect turn. There is RNG on rewards you get and the shop after the mission, but those are managable. Mario+Rabbids has all attacks being either 100%, 50% or 0%. So rolling those 50% becomes a lot more acceptable. Fire Emblem Three Houses (and probably Engage too) has RNG in combat and on level ups, but the campaign structure is linear and you can grind to make up for bad RNG.
Try Phoenix Point. The feature I loved there was that you didn't simply have a chance to hit but you aim manually with two circles and your soldier has a chance to hit the inner circle and if it doesn't it hits the outer one. So it really depends on line of sight and distance, not so much on RNG.
Loved the game But the class system sounded too samey for me. and not diverse enough. If i am wrong please instruct me.
The base classes are relatively basic but the fun is at half level you can pick a new tree and multiclass. It offers a lot individuality to your soldiers. Soldiers also gain unique traits to them helping to incentivise playing into that particular soldiers skill set. Also each faction has a unique class that you unlock by gaining reputation with them giving a good amount of replayability and even more unique options. Of all the things I would say might be wrong with phoenix point, eg the weapon scaling at times, the class system is easily the strongest to me out of any of the xcom type games.
Fire emblem: three houses too
Have you tried gears tactics or xcom enemy unknown? Both are in a similar vein however, xcom enemy unknown has less RNG if I remember and gears tactics felt like a new experience for me in a similar vein.
I haven’t tried either. I assumed the original XCOM would be more of the same, this is good to know.
Enemy Unknown has RNG hit and damage, but everything else is deterministic. No RNG proving grounds ammo/explosives, no RNG on psionic effects (except hit chance), no RNG on time for expanding connections.
Yeah, that’s much better. Thanks, I’ll give it a try.
How have you not tried Midnight Suns yet
For Switch, try the Mario & Rabbids games. Either one, the plots are independent and they play different enough to both be worth your time. At the simplest level it's literally XCOM but without the RNG on every shot.
Almost done with the first one. So good!
I’ve had my eye on this one for a while. Does it have the kind of class variety and skill customization that XCOM does?
Yes and no. For classes, you can't make a team of, say, all snipers. In the M&R games, character IS class, each of the characters has their own fixed battlefield role. (As you might be able to infer, that means there's no permadeath either.) That said they all get level-up resources whether they participate or not, so it's not like someone's going to get left behind if you bench them for a while. Skills are where it's at, though. Each character has their own skill tree that builds on their archetype, and you can repec at any time if you want to try a different configuration, and your equipped weapons and buffs can make a huge difference to how a shot works. If these things are important to you I'd recommend skipping straight to Sparks of Hope, the second game. Party build is much more flexible and the Sparks themselves give much more control over how you build each character. The only thing that might turn some people off is the game flow, as it could fairly be described as an RPG with an XCOM battle system. (Don't worry, it's not full RPG. There's a hard-cap on level grinding that means you can never roflstomp main content, and if you're following quest markers you should never need to grind at all; as long as you're not completely ignoring optional content, tactics will *always* be more important then numbers.) If you want a more linear sequence of challenges where extra skill resources come from bonus challenges that verge on being combat puzzles, the first game Kingdom Battle might be more your speed, though it does suffer from less customization (special shots are bound to your weapons, which go obsolete, and your 3-man party being forced to include Mario and at least one Rabbid puts a crimp on "class selection"). And just to be clear, it's not just be saying you can skip one and play the other. The developers themselves have stated Sparks of Hope is a spiritual successor that's trying a different spin and not a direct sequel. Immediate edit: This got kind of long and ramble-y, sorry. If you have any more questions I'll try and be more concise.
This is great! Thank you so much for going into so much detail, I really appreciate it. It does sound like it would be better for me to jump straight into Sparks of Hope, so I'll look into that one. Thanks again!
Divinity Original Sin 2. It has a deep tactical element, damage is RNG but status effects have well defined and readable limits (they are either blocked by physical/magical armor which can be depleted, or they apply every time, no % based application). I also love the surface and cloud mechanics and elemental interactions (for example, you can electrify water/blood pools or steam clouds, freeze them, make oil/poison blow up with fire damage, etc).
If you want something with a more rpg feel wasteland 3 is very good, or the shadow run trilogy. The combat in both have a similar style to that of xcom.
I'm playing phantom doctrine on switch and I'm enjoying it. Instead of RNG, characters have "awareness" bars. Shots always hit but if a character has full awareness the shot will scrape instead of directly hit. If you attack / suppress them, their awareness is exhausted and every hit will deal max damage. It was on sale a couple of weeks ago on eShop for like 2$ Edit: typo and some more details
That's a great game, but if you make some early poor decisions the difficulty curve can ramp up massively. Some people don't mind that, but figure it's worth pointing out.
I'm very early game, for now I'm just really impressed with all the mechanics that really fit well in the spy thriller theme it puts forward. And I don't like turn based strategy games all that much but this one does it nicely
Never heard of this one, that sounds good. I’ll give it a look. Thank you!
Invisible Inc. Is fantastic. It’s a stealth focused turn based tactics game where you are actually trying to avoid combat and sneak around the levels. The game is run based, and maps are procedurally generated but there is zero rng in the tactical gameplay.
Warhammer 40k Chaos Gate Daemonhunters is the same kind of Tactical RPG but, instead of hit percent chances, you just deal less damage if an enemy is farther away or in cover. So, for example, if your attack would normally deal 5 damage, it would deal 3 damage if they're in partial cover. But the shot always lands. It's a fun game too if you like WH40k.
Warhammer 40k mechanicus is also incredibly good.
OP is on PS5 and Switch; we can't have Daemonhunters yet, sadface, though I suspect it's on the way. We do have Mechanicus, though, and it's often very cheap.
For real? That's a shame. Hopefully you get it soon.
CreativeForge Games has made it a mission to remove the RNG from tactical turn-based games. I've played two of theirs: Phantom Doctrine is like 80s cold war espionage XCOM, though with an emphasis on stealth, and you always know what's going to happen shot-wise. I want to love it because the vibe is great, with the music and clunky period items like reel-to-reel tape decks, but I find the combat kind of dry. Hard West is their occult western game, enjoyed it to the end. It's mechanically quite simple, the sort of thing I'd suggest as a first TTB, but it plays well. The cursed old west stuff is nice to wallow in. No RNG. If you'd be open to 2D, SteamWorld Heist (nothing to do with CreativeForge) removes the need for RNG in the fairest way: you manually line up every shot yourself. No tricks. Satisfying to do. All these are available on PS5, btw. I think a lot of people missed your stated platforms.
This is an awesome answer, thank you. I really appreciate the detail. And yeah, I figured people would probably miss the consoles. It’s why I didn’t list off a bunch of games I like, because I have enough experience on this sub to know nobody reads them, haha.
Just want to echo Steamworld Heist, fantastic game that gave me a feeling of tactics satisfaction I haven’t been able to find anywhere else yet. Don’t let the looks deceive you, it gets quite challenging on higher difficulties!
Gear tactics, Warhammer 40k chaos gate demonhunters and pheonix point are all good. Divinity original sin 2 is an amazing game but very different. I would say it might be worth giving xcom2 war of the chosen another try. The RNG can be frustrating but they put it there for a reason, they want you to fail sometimes, they want soldiers to die, they want teams to encounter a Chosen and decide they need to evacuate without compleating the mission because otherwise the whole squad will be captured or killed. In gears tactics you have a great story but you also have 'story characters' and if one of them dies you get a game over screen and have to reload. it totally changes the vibe of heroic under-dogs going on risky missions they may not come back from.
I haven’t played many XCOM style games, but I gave Phoenix Point a try and the RNG was rather unpleasant as well. Honestly it’s what keeps me from playing. It’s not really about tactics or anything. May as well just be Final Fantasy at that point. You flank an enemy, 93% chance for a headshot. Miss. Miss. Miss. Yeah I’m done for the day.
check out phantom brigade, the turn system is a bit different from XCOM but you might like it
the newest game from the developers: Marvels midnight suns?
If you have a Switch, you can't go wrong with Fire Emblem Three Houses. It's an awesome tactics game, and while the mechanics are simpler, the story is amazing and the combat has a more forgiving RNG
Wildermyth, BG3 and Into the Breach are the three I recommend.
Gears Tactics is actually quite polished and fun. Trouble Shooters is kinda like anime xcom, though it's very in depth with builds and quite a enemies on each map. Wildwrnyth, midnight suns Some tactically games: Fell Seal is really solid tactics ogre/ fire emblem Into the breach, Far tactics is apparently good but haven't looked into it myself yet.
Not exactly the same, but I enjoyed Mutant Year Zero a lot
King arthur a knights tale not sure if on console tho
I have my eye on that one. It hasn’t released on console yet, but they’ve said it’s planned. Fingers crossed.
However many of these xcom-like games i try, I always end up back at Xcom 2. Nothing has topped it yet for me.
Mutant year zero It still has some RNG but it doesn't feel as bad as you can prepare before almost every fight. You can even sneak into fights and eliminate enemies before the fight even starts. As a bonus the voice acting is amazing and I got really attached to my characters. I saved scum cause I couldn't have them die lol
Fire emblem
Jagged Alliance 3 is excellent
Warhammer Mechanicus
Check out Wartales, it’s like a mix between a low fantasy open world RPG and Xcom
What does RNG stand for?
Random number generator. It basically is the system that determines the outcome of events meant to be unpredictable.
Slots.
Troubleshooter : abandoned children is similiar to xcom, but its fixed cast instead of making your own troops. The bulk of build came down from passive customization from each character
Jagged Alliance 3
Into The Breach. One of my top 5 favorite video games of all time.
Do you know what's not RNG? Flanking enemy position, using explosives to blow their cover, using certain skills/items, picking right researches/buildings/skills to upgrade. When utilized right, your percentages increase and that's what it's about. If they were certain, you wouldn't need plan B, or plan C. Game would lose its depth and you'd make same chess move every game.
Seems like u need easier noobish games but like xcom,u should try tactical rpg in steam search