Games Like Into the Breach, Sorted by What the Enemy Shows
What are the best games like Into the Breach?
Updated October 2026.
The best games like Into the Breach are Shogun Showdown, Fights in Tight Spaces, Cobalt Core and Tactical Breach Wizards, because in all four you see what the enemy will do before you commit your turn. Shogun Showdown is the one to play first, as the closest roguelike; pick Cobalt Core if you loved FTL too, and Tactical Breach Wizards if you want the best-reviewed game here. Desktop Dungeons: Rewind, Invisible, Inc. and Mech Armada show you part of the enemy’s plan, and Wargroove and Hard West 2 show none of it.
A telegraphed tactics game is a turn-based strategy game that shows each enemy’s next attack before you act, so each turn is a puzzle with an exact answer instead of a bet on hit chances.
Into the Breach is the purest version of that idea. Its store page puts it in one line: “All enemy attacks are telegraphed in minimalistic, turn-based combat.” Every battle is an 8x8 grid with a fixed number of turns, and you protect the civilian buildings that power your mechs, per Wikipedia’s gameplay summary. The same article says Subset Games kept the turn counter short to keep battles short, and found that telegraphing the Vek’s moves sped the pace up further. It has 22,453 Steam reviews, 94% positive, at $14.99 regular (as of October 2026).
So the test for this list is how much the enemy tells you. I sorted nine games into three groups: the enemy shows its next move, the enemy shows part of the picture, or the enemy keeps its turn to itself. The closer a game sits to the top, the more each turn plays like a puzzle with a correct answer.
How much does the enemy show you in each game?
| Game | What the enemy shows you | What squeezes your turn | Shape |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shogun Showdown | Its next action, before it happens | Enemies in front and behind on a single row, and a queue of at most three attacks | Roguelike runs |
| Fights in Tight Spaces | Where each enemy will attack | Momentum, positioning and edges | Roguelike deckbuilder |
| Cobalt Core | The enemy ship’s intentions each turn | Shots lined up on a single left and right axis | Roguelike deckbuilder |
| Tactical Breach Wizards | Each enemy’s intent, plus a preview of your own moves with free rewinds | Optional goals such as winning within two turns | Handmade story campaign |
| Desktop Dungeons: Rewind | The result of each attack before you make it | Hidden tiles you need to uncover to heal | Short dungeon puzzles |
| Invisible, Inc. | Where a guard is heading, once you watch it move | An alarm level that rises after your turns | Roguelike campaign |
| Mech Armada | Movement and attack range, with almost no dodge chance | Energy squares and survive-the-turns maps | Roguelike runs |
| Wargroove | Nothing ahead of time, like Advance Wars | A whole army to move every turn | Story campaign, plus one-turn puzzles |
| Hard West 2 | Nothing ahead of time | Three action points, refilled by a kill | Story campaign |
| Hellmate (ours · unreleased) | Not claimed before release | The king’s HP against a turn limit | Roguelike run through the floors of Hell |
The second table puts the same nine games side by side on the numbers.
| Game | Released on Steam | Regular price (as of October 2026) | Main story, HowLongToBeat | Steam reviews (as of October 2026) | Positive | Mac on Steam |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shogun Showdown | 2024 | $14.99 | 10.3 hours | 7,113 | 95% | Yes |
| Fights in Tight Spaces | 2021 | $24.99 | 10.4 hours | 3,951 | 90% | No |
| Cobalt Core | 2023 | $19.99 | 18.1 hours | 4,402 | 96% | Yes |
| Tactical Breach Wizards | 2024 | $19.99 | 13 hours | 12,214 | 98% | No |
| Desktop Dungeons: Rewind | 2023 | $19.99 | No reliable data | 653 | 77% | No |
| Invisible, Inc. | 2015 | $19.99 | 7.2 hours | 5,792 | 91% | Yes |
| Mech Armada | 2022 | $19.99 | 7.3 hours | 699 | 81% | No |
| Wargroove | 2019 | $19.99 | 20 hours | 5,278 | 82% | No |
| Hard West 2 | 2022 | $29.99 | 16.8 hours | 3,233 | 82% | No |
Prices are Steam’s regular US prices. Every game here was discounted when I checked on 2 October, by 45% to 85%, so look at the store before you pay full price. Lengths are HowLongToBeat’s “Main Story” averages for Shogun Showdown, Fights in Tight Spaces, Cobalt Core, Tactical Breach Wizards, Invisible, Inc., Mech Armada, Wargroove and Hard West 2. Read the thin ones with care: Mech Armada’s time rests on 4 players and Hard West 2’s on 5, and Desktop Dungeons: Rewind has a single logged time, so I left it out. These are the averages players logged on HowLongToBeat, not the length of a single run. Into the Breach itself sits at 5.8 hours.
Games like Into the Breach where the enemy shows its next move
Shogun Showdown: the closest roguelike
Shogun Showdown is the closest game to Into the Breach on this list, and the one I would buy first. You fight on one row of tiles, and each turn you move one square, turn around to face the other way, add an attack to a queue that holds up to three, or unleash that queue; then the enemies take their turns (Wikipedia). The same article says the strategy comes from knowing ahead of time what each enemy will do next. If a spear is about to hit the two tiles in front of it, you step back, or you swap places with the spearman so it strikes a different set of tiles. Turning an enemy’s own attack aside is pure Into the Breach. It runs on Mac, and Wikipedia lists Switch, PlayStation and Xbox versions too.
Fights in Tight Spaces: the telegraph as a card game
If you liked shoving Vek into each other more than you liked the mechs, play Fights in Tight Spaces. You pick from over 200 cards to build a deck and fight your adversaries in tight spaces; the store page asks you to “balance your hand, momentum, and positioning.” The Before I Play guide says to set the “Hazard Information” option to “Always Visible” so you can see exactly where each enemy will attack, and calls pushing an enemy off the edge the quickest way to defeat it. It is Windows only on Steam.
Cobalt Core: Into the Breach and FTL at once
Cobalt Core is FTL’s ship fights rebuilt as Into the Breach turns. It is a roguelike deckbuilder about a small ship that can only move left and right, and PC Gamer’s review puts it plainly: “Each turn you’ll see the enemy ship’s intentions.” Your cards raise shields, fire, or slide the ship one column so an incoming shot misses. The same review calls it “FTL meets Into the Breach meets Slay the Spire.” It runs on Mac.
Tactical Breach Wizards: the best reviewed, and more forgiving than Into the Breach
Tactical Breach Wizards is the best-reviewed game on this list, at 98% positive across 12,214 reviews (as of October 2026). It is a turn-based story campaign of about 14 hours. Turn Based Lovers’ review says “You can see what each enemy unit’s intent is during your turn,” and a seer on the team lets you see how your own moves will play out and take them back, up until you end the turn (Wikipedia). Its store page draws the line itself: “It’s not Into the Breach. This is more forgiving, but the ceiling on how many different things you can do in a turn is higher.” It also says the game is not a roguelike, since every level is handcrafted. Windows only.
Games like Into the Breach where the enemy shows part of the picture
Desktop Dungeons: Rewind: the puzzle without a squad
For players who liked solving Into the Breach more than commanding it, there is Desktop Dungeons: Rewind. It is a remaster of Desktop Dungeons, whose sessions take about 10 minutes (Wikipedia). MP1st’s review notes that the game predicts the outcome of each attack, down to whether you or the monster takes the death blow. What you cannot see is the map: per the store page, revealing hidden tiles is how you heal, so every step spends health you might need for the boss. Its reviews are the weakest here, 77% positive across 653 (as of October 2026).
Invisible, Inc.: the turn limit as an alarm
If the turn counter was your favorite part, play Invisible, Inc. It is a turn-based stealth game from Klei with a three-day campaign (Wikipedia), and after your turn the guards move and the alarm level usually rises, bringing more security. Guards are not telegraphed the way the Vek are, but they are readable: per the community wiki, a patrolling guard walks between the same two points, so its route can be learned, and when you watch an investigating guard move, the tile it is heading for appears as a question mark. It runs on Mac.
Mech Armada: the mechs, without the preview
Want the mechs more than the puzzle? In Mech Armada you build them from over 80 parts and fight a swarm on a grid, and the store page is honest that there are “no perfect solutions”: you are “anticipating their actions”, not reading them. A review at Cubic Creativity explains the habit that replaces the telegraph: stay outside the enemy’s move and attack range until it walks into yours. Attacks hit automatically apart from a rare dodge chance, so what you cannot know in advance is the enemy’s next decision, not how the dice will fall. Windows only.
Games like Into the Breach where the enemy keeps its turn to itself
Wargroove: the classic, plus one-turn puzzles
Wargroove trades three mechs for a full army. It is a Nintendo Wars style strategy game (Wikipedia), so the enemy turn is a surprise and you plan for what might come. The reason it is here is its Puzzle mode, where, in the store page’s words, “the goal is to win in just ONE turn”. That is an Into the Breach mission with the enemy’s reply removed. It is also the only game here with online and local multiplayer. Windows only on Steam.
Hard West 2: when the turn rewards aggression
Hard West 2 is the furthest from Into the Breach on this list. It is a turn-based tactics game set in a Weird West, with three action points per character and no overwatch, and a killing blow refills a character’s action points, “potentially allowing them to continue attacking indefinitely” (Wikipedia). Trick shots ricochet off objects to hit enemies behind cover. Shots are not certain, though: PC Gamer’s review says luck makes your attacks more accurate, and that hunkering down in cover gives a better chance of evading incoming fire, so this pick gives up the exact answer the games above offer. Play it if your favorite Into the Breach turns were the ones where one mech did everything. Windows only.
FTL and Into the Breach
FTL: Faster Than Light is Subset Games’ earlier game, from 2012, and it is the obvious next step if you have not played it, but it is not on the list on purpose. Its fights run in real time, which you pause to give orders, so there is no turn to solve the way there is in Into the Breach. It has 78,893 reviews, 95% positive, at $9.99 regular (as of October 2026), and runs on Mac. If you want both games in one, play Cobalt Core.
Where our game fits
Our own game, Hellmate, sits beside this list rather than on it. It is roguelike deckbuilding chess in the seven floors of Hell, where each floor belongs to a deadly sin and every sin crowns its own king; you summon pieces, sling spells and brand your army with sigils to melt the king’s HP before your turns run out. Unlike Into the Breach, your army is a hand of cards you summon onto the board, and you attack a king’s HP instead of protecting buildings. That turn limit is still the part an Into the Breach player will recognize. It is unreleased, dated 19 January 2027 on Steam (as of October 2026), so there are no scores to compare, but the demo is playable now on Windows and macOS. If the grid is what you came for, deckbuilders where the grid matters and the best chess roguelikes go further.
Frequently asked questions
What is the closest game to Into the Breach? Shogun Showdown. It is a one-row tactics roguelike where every enemy shows its next action, and its best turns come from stepping aside or turning an enemy’s attack onto different tiles.
Which games like Into the Breach run on a Mac? Three of the nine do on Steam: Shogun Showdown, Cobalt Core and Invisible, Inc. (as of October 2026). Into the Breach and FTL also support Mac. The other six picks, including Tactical Breach Wizards, are Windows only there.
Are there games like Into the Breach on Switch? Yes. Shogun Showdown, Invisible, Inc. and Wargroove all have Switch versions, per their Wikipedia articles, and so does Into the Breach itself. I checked the other six on Steam only, so this list is not complete for consoles.
Are there games like Into the Breach and FTL together? Yes. On this list it is Cobalt Core, a turn-based roguelike deckbuilder about a small ship where you see the enemy ship’s intentions every turn. PC Gamer’s review sums it up as “FTL meets Into the Breach meets Slay the Spire.”
Key takeaways
- Shogun Showdown is the closest roguelike and the one to play first; Tactical Breach Wizards is the best reviewed, at 98% positive, but it is a story campaign and Windows only.
- Cobalt Core is the one pick here that covers Into the Breach and FTL at once.
- Desktop Dungeons: Rewind, Invisible, Inc. and Mech Armada show part of the enemy’s plan; Wargroove and Hard West 2 show none of it, and Hard West 2’s shots can miss.
- For more on what makes a run worth repeating, read what makes a good roguelike, and for demos you can try today, roguelike demos on Steam.
