From its first moments, The Lamplighters League and the Tower At the End of the World hits you over the head with style. With its ripping saxophone-led soundtrack and misfit cast of characters, the upcoming tactical strategy game from the team t Harebrained Schemes makes a strong first impression.
Back at GDC 2023, I had the chance to watch the developers play some of the pulp adventure game, and I came away pretty impressed. I love tactical, turn-based combat games myself - games like XCOM and The Banner Saga series are, well, banner games in my mind. The Lamplighters League takes what's great about those games, as well as the studio's own lessons from the wildly popular Shadowrun series, and creates a satisfying mix of stealth and combat.
After going hands on with the first tutorial mission, I can honestly say I'm pretty hooked on what Hairbrained Schemes is laying down here. Taking control of two agents, Ingrid and the sneaky Lateef, I was set on the path of rendezvousing with a courier carrying a package for the mysterious L.
However, in true pulp adventure fashion, it's not that simple as the courier was met with stabby end, leaving our two agents needing to recover the package from a mysterious group of gas-masked soldiers. What sets The Lamplighters League apart from other tactical combat games in the genre (other than it's pulpy, long name) is the blend of real time and turn-based action. Each encounter begins with an Infiltration mode where you can scout out the terrain, uncover secrets and plan your route to the eventual battle to come.
It's also where so much of the character building between Ingrid, Lateef and eventually the lock-picking Eddie happens as the group talks about their motivations, the situation around them, as well as who is their mysterious employer "L" exactly. So much of the style and flair of these characters comes to life in those moments (such as Lateef insisting that he is known as the "Gentleman Djinn") and it makes the scoundrels immediately endearing. It helps too they are impeccably voice acted, which alongside its 1930s-era big band soundtrack and art style that reminds one of Indiana Jones and other pulp adventures really helps to set the stage for a bombastic and fun time.
What makes these Infiltration sequences key is how they can set up and affect your overall combat scenarios as well. Each character settles into a different class, with Ingrid acting as a bruiser who can knock opponents out with a single blow to Eddie, a Sabatouer who can lay down electric mines with shocking results. These abilities can be used to avoid combat altogether - there was one sequence that reminded me a bit of dodging the guards in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time where I could have just rushed in and fought, but instead snuck past with relative ease.
However, fighting is, at times, unavoidable, so using these special abilities to level the playing field is key. Lateef can sneak up behind enemies, kocking them out cold, while Ingrid's Bruiser ability can take out up to three enemies at once outside of combat. But when you "go loud," more often than not you'll end up fighting one of the XCOM-style turn-based battles which pits your squad against the gas-masked foes.
Like you standard turn-based tactical combat, each character has AP that is spent moving, attacking, and in the case of those using guns, reloading (enemies have to reload too, thankfully). Around each arena are your usual hazards that can be used to cause a ton of chaos as well. I appreciated one area where three guards were just, for some reason, sitting around a pile of explosives. Well, Lateef didn't let that go to waste and just a turn later we were on our merry way towards the package.
Ingrid is more "in-your-face" as a Bruiser, and at first I felt this was a little weak compared to her gun-toting friends. But it's here where blending their abilities with hers really helped keep her out of real danger. Lateef's Overwatch ability which lets him fire on enemies that enter a predefined line of sight came in clutch keeping those grunts from ever really closing in too quickly. Eddie's dual pistols also were handy in taking out multiple foes in a single turn as he can attack more than one enemy.
Apart from that Overwatch ability, cover is key to keeping agents out of harms way. Characters like Lateef become almost invisible behind cover (and his really powerful Decoy ultimate adds to that), and learning to weave Ingrid from attacks to cover to defend the next turn became almost like a dance of AP, especially as her Killer Instinct passive rewards extra AP on a kill.
As the mission came to a close, my squad found itself face-to-face with a Scion, powerful enemies that work for the mysterious families that are bent on controlling the world. This was an experience that felt pretty on the rails. The boss, chucking poisoned daggers and seeming pretty invinceable to any damage I could lay down, running away felt like the only viable tactic. However, I needed to secure the pilot who would get my rag-tag group of heroes out of there, all while fighting through a small squad of more of those gas masked stormtroopers.
Utilizing my agent's ultimates, such as Ingrid's sweep which knocks down enemies around her, came in clutch here. Lateef's Decoy was the real MVP, drawing the ire of every enemy nearby allowing my characters to slink away towards our escape route, all the while dealing damage where I could.
What I really aprpeciated about The Lamplighters League was how varied each encounter felt. Too often tactical games like this can start to feel one-note, however throughout this early-game level, each approach felt organic. Sure, the enemies were the same, the character abilities not changing from fight to fight, but the approach in the Infiltration stage helps to shake things up meaningfully to cut through the monotony. My genuine hope is that this carries over to the full game.
While no release date has been given, you can wishlist The Lamplighters League and the Tower at the End of the World on Steam. For Xbox players, you can check it out when it hits Game Pass.
