Rogue Waters Adds In Exactly What I Want to See In A Tactical Turn-Based Game - Gamescom 2024

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The second game I got to see from Tripwire Interactive was a very different beast that excited me in different ways. Rogue Waters is a tactical turn-based game where you will control a crew of pirates going down a roguelike-esque map. It felt very familiar at times, which wasn't necessarily a bad thing, but I love the aesthetic and theme the developers are going for. And the focus they are going with to add extra layers of strategy is by far my favorite element of strategy titles.

The bulk of what I saw felt very familiar at first. It's a tactical RPG with roguelike elements, and it had that feeling overall. General gameplay saw you control your team of pirates in contained fights, moving along a grid and using different attacks and skills to take them down. Different attacks have different effects, may hit multiple people, or inflict status changes. When you complete a battle, you get different currency and EXP, both of which you can use to buy new ship upgrades and character upgrades. Just like other roguelikes, like Slay the Spire, you will go along a node-like path and choose different events that will happen, whether it's specific battles, shops, or events that influence your run with the choices you make.

Rogue Waters sounds like a pretty standard roguelike, right? Well, the differences and gameplay mechanics the team at Ice Code Games has added make it feel so much more unique than others like it.

The biggest change, which is also by far my favorite, is how you fight. The emphasis is less on what attacks you will do and who you will hit and more on how the environment will react to your move. For example, your standard attack with a sword moves you forward and the enemy back, similar to fencing, and takes into account the direction you are hitting them. From there, you can direct if the enemy will hit something in the environment, fall overboard, another enemy, or trigger a domino effect.

Each turn has a significant amount of different moves you can make, all because you can utilize the environment. There are other aspects to interact with, too, like a rope you can swing on to go further on the map, and all of it works together wonderfully. On top of that, you can also use special points you get to call on mythical monsters to help you out in combat. This can change the tides completely if you use it correctly, and it can be a lifesaver.

We also have ship customization and battles, both of which add an entirely different layer of strategy and boost your stats. As you play, you will get different modules to customize your ship with, and each module can affect your crew in different ways. Then, before battles, you will sometimes have a ship battle where you and the enemy team can shoot different parts of the respective ships. If destroyed, the module's effects will not work. This gives you a chance to disable specific effects the enemy team may have or even kill some of their units in the process! The same can happen to you, and there are limited turns, but I love this extra layer of planning and strategy to maximize your chances of winning.

It blew my mind just how well everything worked together and how the new layers of strategy interacted with each other to create a more unique experience. I loved my little time with it, and as a fan of strategy and roguelike titles, I am really looking forward to playing more when it releases!

You can pre-purchase Rogue Waters on Steam now for $23.99 (20% off sale) until it releases on September 30th. And with full controller support, I believe this will be awesome on the Steam Deck.

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