ACHTUNG! CTHULHU TACTICS

The Old Ones are still the best ones

There’s a certain type of person for whom the words ‘it’s like XCOM but…’ are gaming catnip. In the case of Achtung! Cthulhu Tactics, the rest of that phrase goes ‘…but set in a World War Two where the Nazis unlocked the powers of the Old Gods’. It’s an effective setting, albeit one well-trodden by the likes of Wolfenstein, Hellboy, and Overlord. You control a ragtag squad from the Allied Forces’ own occult division, as they push into enemy territory in the wake of D-Day, discovering an increasingly historically-inaccurate bestiary of fascist monsters along the way. 1

This is presented through turn-based tactical battles which handle very similarly to… you guessed it! XCOM. The biggest difference comes in Achtung!'s use of the rather old-school Action Points. 2 Each unit gets 12 AP to spend per turn, which can be used for movement or combat abilities. This allows each weapon to have a more distinctive character – a 4-AP pistol might be able to rattle off two shots, even if you need to reposition, but an 8-AP heavy weapon will limit your options considerably. Opening up your options further still is the Momentum system, a pool of bonus points that can be spent on especially cool abilities, like firing a bullet that can penetrate multiple targets or using psychic powers to siphon an enemy’s life force.

The result is a competent if slightly unremarkable tactics game, which offers plenty of options in a firefight but lacks the cinematic flair of XCOM or anything to make really it stand out in a world where ‘like XCOM but…’ is an increasingly common promise. Alex Spencer

FOOTNOTES1 The greatest monstrosity of all is the accent work, particularly where the Germans are involved. 2 There’s also Luck, a meter which protects each soldier but drains as they get shot at.