October 21, 2023 - Day 294 - NewPlay Review
Total NewPlays: 313

Game: Rebel Inc: Escalation

Platform: Steam
Release Date: Oct 14, 2021
Installation Date: Oct 21, 2023
Unplayed: 0d
Playtime: 29m

Rebel Inc: Escalation is a top-down political/military strategy sim.

It's the fourth game in the October Humble Choice Bundle, and is by the same developers as Plague Inc: Evolved.

Plague Inc is a game about pandemics, released in 2016, and it's game that, while it wasn't "fun" in the traditional sense, it's even less so now.

Rebel Inc: Escalation brings that same sensibility to taking control of a war-torn country to "stabilise" it, and needing to "deal with a deadly insurgency".

The game doesn't really hold your hand, but it's fairly easy to work out. You have a budget that's provided by... the UN, and you need to spend the money on local initiatives to improve support, and remove support from the insurgents. You also need to create government and military strategies to build towards a win-state, which appears to be finding a way to remove the insurgents while maintaining your own popularity.

While I "won" the first level, it vas vaguely disquieting to play a game about war and "insurgents", and would probably feel a bit on-the-nose at the best of times, but even more so at the moment.

Rebel Inc: Escalation is (only just):

3: OK

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