Game: Brigandine Abyss
Genre: Strategy, RPG
System: Nintendo Switch 2 (also on Steam (Windows), Xbox and PlayStation)
Developer|Publisher: Happinet | NIS America
Age Rating: EU 12 | US Teen
Price: US $49.99 | UK 44.99 | EU € 49,99
Release Date: August 27th, 2026
Review code provided with many thanks to Reef Entertainment.
Brigandine Abyss – Means Business
I’ll start by saying that Brigandine Abyss is a game I found quite difficult to get into. This is my first real experience with the Brigandine series. I know the original game dates back to the PlayStation era, with another entry arriving more recently, but this was my first time stepping into the series. I went in with an open mind, and while I didn’t come away completely sold, I did come away intrigued. The problem is that Brigandine Abyss is a very in-depth strategy RPG. If you’re someone who enjoys sitting down, learning a complicated system and slowly working out how everything fits together, there is clearly a lot here to enjoy. If, like me, you’re increasingly looking for games you can pick up and understand relatively quickly, this one might be a tougher sell.
Six Campaigns and a Whole Lot of Strategy
The basic setup sees you choosing between six different factions, with each having its own storyline. The opening premise is fairly straightforward: the Kingdom has fallen into chaos, the Abyssloa Empire is causing all sorts of trouble, and you’re going to have to decide whether you want to defend your territory or start taking over the continent yourself. From there, things become considerably more complicated.
The game essentially has two major sides to its gameplay. You have the large-scale strategic layer, where you manage your territories, organise your forces, recruit monsters, purchase equipment and send units out on quests. Then you have the actual battles. These are turn-based encounters played out on a hexagonal grid, and this is probably the part of Brigandine Abyss that I found easiest to understand and enjoy.
The Battles
Battles give you several leaders, each accompanied by their own collection of monsters and troops. You move your units around the grid, attack enemies and try to complete whatever objective the battle gives you. Usually that means defeating the opposing army, but there are situations where you might instead need to reach a particular location or complete another objective. Positioning is important too. Terrain can affect how you approach a fight, while keeping your leaders alive is particularly important because losing one can mean losing the monsters attached to them as well. There are also elemental strengths and weaknesses to consider, along with different abilities and skills for your units.
This is where I started to appreciate what Brigandine Abyss is trying to do. There’s a real sense that you can think several moves ahead and potentially turn a battle around by using the right positioning or ability at the right time. It almost feels like an advanced game of chess at times. And for strategy fans, I suspect that is going to be a very good thing.
Then the Big Map Arrives
Unfortunately, this is also where I started struggling. The larger strategic layer throws an awful lot at you. You’re managing your territories, moving armies around, developing bases, recruiting monsters, purchasing equipment and deciding where your next attack should come from. There is nothing inherently wrong with this. In fact, I can see why people who enjoy this type of game will love it. The problem for me was that I never felt like I properly understood what I was supposed to be doing. The game does provide tutorials, but they often come in the form of fairly sizeable chunks of text. I found myself reading the explanations without necessarily feeling that I had actually learned the system. It often felt like Brigandine Abyss expected me to already have some understanding of how these strategy games work. That made the learning curve feel particularly steep.
Discovery
There is plenty of content here once you get into it. Alongside the main campaigns, there’s a Mission Mode featuring 24 different factions, each with their own objectives. The monster system is also quite enjoyable. You can recruit all sorts of creatures to your forces, and I particularly liked the variety of designs. There’s something quite fun about building an army that contains everything from more traditional fantasy creatures to rather unexpected monsters.
Visually, the game is pleasant. It has the expected anime-inspired character artwork alongside its maps and battlefields, and the monster designs provide some welcome variety. You can have an octopus and a golem on your team; what’s not to like. It isn’t a game that blew me away visually, but it does the job.
Conclusion: Lost in the Abyss
I think Brigandine Abyss is probably a game where my own circumstances affected my experience quite a lot. I simply struggled to understand the ins and outs of the perceived complicated strategy system before I felt comfortable playing and enjoying it. Brigandine Abyss demands an investment, and I wasn’t able to give it that. It just didn’t click with me compared to other strategy games. That doesn’t mean I think it’s a bad game. Quite the opposite, actually. I can see the appeal. The tactical battles are enjoyable, the army management has plenty of depth, and there is a huge amount here for dedicated strategy fans to get stuck into. It’s just not particularly welcoming to someone looking for a quick introduction to the genre.
So if you’re a complete strategy newcomer, I wouldn’t necessarily point you towards Brigandine Abyss as your starting point. But if you’ve got the patience, enjoy grand strategy and don’t mind spending some time learning how everything works, there’s clearly a substantial game underneath that intimidating first layer. For me, it was more a case of “I like what you’re doing, Brigandine Abyss, but I’m not sure I have the time to become friends with you.” There is a free demo, which I highly recommend trying.
Final Verdict: I Like it
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