The PC strategy RPG army swells: Absolute Tactics arrives September 15
Absolute Tactics, or as it would've been called in '90s California, Hella Tactics, is an indie project that longtime Gearbox Software developer Jason Shields has been working on for the last five years. It's finally almost finished, and landing on Steam and the Nintendo Switch on September 15—right in the middle of the biggest year for the strategy RPG genre in decades.
Tactics Ogre, the grandfather of the genre, is making its way to PC later this year, but Shields took a bit of a different tact with his design for Absolute Tactics. «I think a natural trend in games, and SRPGs are no exception, is to become more and more complicated over time,» he says. «Even though there’s plenty of gear and min-max opportunities for those who are inclined, I wanted Absolute Tactics to have a little bit more streamlined approach in those areas.»
For example: Your characters in Absolute Tactics aren't locked into a particular class, and swapping classes doesn't mean starting from zero. You just swap a piece of gear called a Class Handbook to switch classes, or equip two to dual-class. Upgrade the handbook, and the class grows stronger.
«This was a simple way for me to help make choosing classes be a bit more fluid and let players try lots of different combinations, rather than feel locked in to certain playstyles for the whole game,» Shields says.
Dual-classing is probably Absolute Tactics' standout feature, and it makes sense for the smaller squads you'll be deploying compared to the dozen-odd units you micromanage in many strategy RPGs.
«I think dual-classing is generally the way to go in order to get a wide array of skills for each character, to make them super useful in as many situations as possible,» says Shields. «For example, a
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