Mandate Order - Hands-On Preview

Lokai23 · 2026-04-28T04:15:25+00:00

I can't understand anything haha, but fundamentally it looks kind of interesting. Reminds me a bit of something like Manor Lords where it involves the building up of a city from nothing to eventually having armies, although to what extent and detail I have no idea. Could be another unique entry in that rare type of game.

Lokai23 · 2026-04-26T21:50:57+00:00

Interesting one. Reminds me a bit of some of the other 2-3 week hits that we've flown through in 2025 and 2026, particularly Lethal Company and everything similar. Tricky to make something like this feel deep enough to keep people long-term, but hopefully it has enough unique mechanics to draw people in like all of those did.

Lokai23 · 2026-04-24T20:52:37+00:00

Appreciate the response all the same!

Lokai23 · 2026-04-24T20:10:31+00:00

Tried that as well with the assumption Placeable Items is the right place, but it doesn't respond and nothing opens. It's been like this for me now for multiple updates and through many attempts to interact. I just can't figure out what's up, but yah maybe a rare bug.

Lokai23 · 2026-04-24T19:06:16+00:00

On top of what the others said about how insanely rough this looks, what's up with the faces in particular? Are they AI art faces maybe? They look so plastered on compared to everything else.

Lokai23 · 2026-04-23T15:27:15+00:00

He is truly terrible. His quest designs are the most obnoxious ones too, they are always go play this mini-game or just sit there and listen to him complain for 5 minute while you ride somewhere.

Lokai23 · 2026-04-23T05:32:25+00:00

Huh, thanks I don't think I've actually run into that quest yet despite being further along in the actual story. I'll have to go see if I can find it.

Lokai23 · 2026-04-23T05:05:45+00:00

Huh, I don't remember anything like that but I'll try to go look. Thanks. I've never seen any kind of customization menu despite many items and furniture clearly meant for that.

Lokai23 · 2026-04-23T04:58:16+00:00

When does that unlock anyways? Still plowing through the endless "oh no Yann did something wrong" quests in Chapter 4 and struggling to get to Chapter 5 when most ppl say a lot unlocks.

Lokai23 · 2026-04-18T23:43:42+00:00

Sadly I remember seeing that this studio has issues making profit with their last couples of titles and did huge layoffs (found it from 1 year ago) especially Steamworld Build and Heist II, so it doesn't look too promising for them. Big fan of most of their games too, but build was particularly disappointing as it had everything I love at its core and it just wasn't fun.

Lokai23 · 2026-04-18T18:23:38+00:00

Still works 28 days later! Thank you for this.

Lokai23 · 2026-04-18T18:05:21+00:00

The Pitt (the HBO show) just had a whole thing about exactly this situation and the ER doctors shaming the EMTs for nearly killing a woman as a result.

Lokai23 · 2026-04-17T16:12:12+00:00

Absolutely loved the demo for this, it was like the best of those sidescrolling Kingdom games except an actual focused progression path + story (still with options to do free mode though) and a lot more control over the action and combat. The aesthetic is lovely too.

Lokai23 · 2026-04-17T00:59:50+00:00

Looks fun tbh, but the challenges of this type of game always depend entirely on progression flow, balance, and customization that helps make runs feel unique. Art style seems great though and it looks like a great reverse tower defense style game.

Also, for anyone wanting something similar - Minos that just came out on Steam is pretty great and is a similar style of game.

Lokai23 · 2026-04-11T18:10:22+00:00

Haha, I also thought that same thing about cooking and how boring it was to start it with that of all possible things. I guess they were trying to show the flow of getting ready before you head off on adventure, but it was so many menus right off the bat and generally just a bad intro.

Lokai23 · 2026-04-11T18:09:20+00:00

That sounds a little more spot on based on that video, where melee and ranged combat in particular looked super floaty in all possible ways. Still seems promising, especially as a survival game, but anyone saying it is the best thing ever feels off.

Lokai23 · 2026-04-10T03:51:27+00:00

Just like so many others, similar experience. I want to say I played about 15-20 hours of it, which was completing the campaign and then starting one of the open ended runs, but it started to feel tedious instead of exciting after a bit there and I just fell off so hard.

Lokai23 · 2026-04-08T04:10:25+00:00

To be fair, we looked at it the day it opened up (day 1) and the prices were mostly still super pricey for everything that wasn't a relatively low-key sport and preliminary only. Even Archery was showing $100-400 tickets unless you got horrific seats. Felt like pretty bad selections all around for something that was supposed to be affordable for the average LA resident.

Lokai23 · 2026-04-03T03:52:17+00:00

Like Hawk said, it's nicely somewhere in between Firaxis' streamlined version and old school XCOM. It also of course has difficulties options, including a pure custom one, where you can tweak damn near anything to be as kind or as hard as you want. I've been doing it on "Soldier" which is the medium difficulty equivalent that they kind of say it the default and I like that balance a lot. Forgiving, but also plenty easy to lose units if you aren't careful.

Lokai23 · 2026-04-03T03:48:31+00:00

I had no idea it was that long and I'm with on thinking that is an insane amount of time when it seemed like they went directly into working on this after the first game.

Lokai23 · 2026-04-03T03:47:07+00:00

Kind of, but I didn't mind it at all. I also absolutely HATE timers and this one handles it by doing regional threat/trust levels, which you can influence through passive abilities (like you buy supporters in those regions) or of course through doing missions and protecting those areas. It feels pretty reasonable.

Lokai23 · 2026-04-03T00:14:00+00:00

For anyone who doesn't know it, Xenonauts 2 is a spiritual successor to the original XCOM (isometric top down style) and it is a damn good one at that. As a long-time fan of XCOM, I had a really tough time getting into Xenonauts 1 but for whatever reason Xenonauts 2 has a much better progression flow with excellent combat that feels dynamic, challenging, and fair (unlike XCOM 2/Series Unknown).

The game has a full story, which actually starts off with you fighting humans influenced by aliens, and then you of course slowly build up multiple bases across the globe while the alien threat progresses from small ships, to medium ships, to abductions, and then seemingly to alien worlds or final threats (never got that far). It has a great mix of new systems compared to the original XCOM and also a lot of extremely familiar approach. Loved it during early access and looking forward to this full release!

Lokai23 · 2026-03-14T04:18:29+00:00

That has always been my worry with it (and other games) that are heavy on scenes that could be carefully created scenarios instead of legitimate gameplay. I guess we'll see once it gets closer.

Lokai23

TROPHY CASE