Some games ask you to react quickly. Order Automatica would rather you stopped, thought about your next move and wondered why you hadn’t spotted the obvious solution sooner.
Available now on Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S for £4.29, this dark tactical roguelite turns automated combat into a battle of planning, positioning and increasingly ridiculous combinations.
At A Glance
- Game: Order Automatica
- Price: £4.29
- Platforms: Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S
- Publisher: better. publishing
- Developer: New Beings
The Battle Is Decided Before It Begins
Order Automatica takes an unusual approach to tactical combat. Once the fighting starts, your units take care of the actual attacks automatically. Your job is to make sure you’ve given them the best possible chance of winning beforehand.
Everything takes place on a compact 3×3 ritual grid, meaning there isn’t much room for wasted space. Where you position your units, how you manipulate tiles and which combinations you create can completely change the outcome of an encounter.
Positioning is just one piece of the puzzle. Unit merging, tile effects, relic combinations and curses can all feed into your strategy, while clever synergies can produce devastating chain reactions. The idea is to experiment and discover which elements work together. Find the right combination and an encounter can suddenly fall apart in your favour. Get things wrong and your entire run could come crashing down.
Like Chess With Demons
There’s simplicity to Order Automatica’s pitch. A 3×3 board, automated enemies and a handful of systems to manipulate doesn’t sound particularly intimidating. But that’s exactly where the challenge lies. With positioning, timing, merging, relics, curses and synergies all contributing to the outcome, the tiny board can become a surprisingly complicated tactical playground.
At £4.29 from the Xbox Store, Order Automatica is certainly an inexpensive way to try something a little different. If you’ve ever fancied a strategy game where the fighting takes care of itself and the real battle is working out what you should have done beforehand, this could be worth a look.
Order Automatica is available now on Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S.
