Brigandine Abyss got the best of me, which makes me excited to play more

I’m going to be honest with you: walking up to the NIS America booth at PAX East, I’d never actually heard of Brigandine: The Legend of Runersia, a strategy game from Happinet and Matrix Software that originally released in 2020 for Nintendo Switch (followed by ports for PlayStation 4 and Steam). In fact, I only learned about it when I looked further into Brigandine Abyss, a new strategy title being showcased at NIS America's booth during PAX East.

I thought this new game — developed by Adglobe (Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights, Redemption Reapers) — was a wholly new IP standing hilariously in contrast to a Disgaea musou game at the same booth. Turns out, it’s not! It’s the third game in the Brigandine series, due for release sometime this year, six years after its predecessor. I had a chance to try it out at PAX, despite my unfamiliarity with the series.

The demo has you playing through a battle that I was told usually takes in the neighborhood of half an hour to complete, which doesn’t seem too bad. It all kicks off with a very brief primer of the story and what’s going on before dumping you at the fight. Admittedly, I would’ve liked at least a little more of the exposition and context for who everyone is and why they’re fighting. So, whether or not this game has much going on in the storytelling or character writing department, both of which can often elevate strategy RPGs to massive and memorable heights, I wasn't able to get any sort of read on.

The gameplay, however, is a different story. The combat itself is relatively straightforward at its core, giving you different units with different classes, and with those, different abilities. Interestingly, all the units move on hexagonal planes, offering much more flexible directional movement, which turns out to be just as much of a blessing as a curse. Not only can some abilities only be used based on your range from the target, but also, I found that it was not always clear what space your character is in or where they could move to. Because of the way the spaces are laid out, sometimes your perspective becomes obscured in such a way that I found it tricky to figure out what to click on, which can be pretty annoying.  

Still, the foremost thing about this game that’ll either excite you or turn you away from it is probably the level of challenge. Especially for event demos, it's usually commonplace to play a streamlined slice that lets you focus on whatever the developers want you to see. However, the PAX demo for Brigandine Abyss was more difficult than I’m used to, to the extent that I wasn't actually able to beat it in the time allowed. Granted, I’m not exactly a strategy-slash-tactical RPG expert, and I was thrown quickly into a battle scenario, but I’m also certainly not new to the genre. Admittedly, I do tend to be pretty liberal about letting units die in battle, so that probably had something to do with it.

All the same, I found myself surprised at how much thought and consideration I had to give in planning my moves. If I had a more fleshed-out grasp of the abilities and powers at my disposal, who knows how differently this fight could’ve gone? I suppose that could be the hallmarks of a promising tactical game. Thinking something like that after just a demo is pretty exciting, and it has me itching to try the earlier entries in the series.

If nothing else, this demo is a great way to garner more interest in checking out The Legend of Runersia, which has been available for quite some time. Hopefully, while perhaps it might enhance the experience of this game, it won’t prove to be a necessity to enjoy Brigandine Abyss. If this taste is anything like what the full game is, and if the storytelling is anywhere near as solid as the gameplay, we could be in for something really fun with this one — all the more so if it can get just a little more polish on its controls before the full release.

Brigandine Abyss is currently scheduled to release in 2026 on Steam, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch 2.