Breach and Clear Releasing July 18

Breach and Clear

In a few short hours you will be able to download a turn based tactical shooter called Breach and Clear to your iOS devices. It is being touted as half Rainbow Six and half XCOM. The setting is modern day secret military operations. You will travel across three exotic locations during 15 missions. I don’t know about you, but I am a huge fan of tactics games like Final Fantasy Tactics, Tactics Battle Ogre, and Valkyria Chronicles. I even bought Metal Gear Acid, twice. Suffice to say any time I see a tactics game come out, my brain starts working on overdrive thinking of all the new ways to dominate the playing field.

Setting

The setting for Breach and Clear is modern day warfare. This means your unit is comprised of elite soldiers behind enemy lines with similar equipment to real spec ops soldiers. Your weapons can be customized, and your troops can be upgraded. The tactics resemble those found in the real world. For example, ‘slicing the pie’ is a military tactic where you keep as much cover possible while entering a space where you would normally be vulnerable to gunfire. In the video above you can see the player using this tactic to enter a room. Using one soldier to sweep left while rotating his body around the entry to the room. The squadmates follow him in and cover the areas he can not see. The entire squad moves as one unit — just like in reality.

Gameplay

As with other tactics games, Breach and Clear lets you control several individual units together as a squad to dispatch enemies. You also get to choose from several types of squads at the beginning of the game, each with unique stats. Once you have told all of your soldiers what to do, the actions all play out like a cinematic. Remember though, you are not a superhero – this game is intended to resemble real world scenarios. If you fail to cover a hallway there may be an enemy alerted by the chaos you cause in an adjoining room, and that enemy might slaughter your squad. This is what sets this game apart from other tactics games where you can earn a sort of godlike status. Breach and Clear is meant to keep you on your toes.

Purchase Incentives

It seems there are some goodies in the works for players who commit to purchasing the game early. If you purchase the game on launch day – July 18th 2013 – you will receive a free gun called the “Gold M4”. If that was not enough to open your wallet, the official features page states that there will be custom patches available with 100% of proceeds going to veterans and their families in need.