Mech Armada looked pretty neat last year when it first revealed, but the 10 months since its Early Access debut has really been kind to the game. It's a tactics roguelite about your army of customized mechs taking on an equally-endless swarm of monstrosities. Its unique twist is that each mech is customized from a set of parts, transport, torso, and guns.
So you might design hovering repair bots, or rolling melee berserkers, or loping ranged harassment bots. Perhaps the coolest bit is that the mechs you design aren't just customizable between fights: You can upgrade and transform mechs mid-combat as you gather energy off the battlefield. Tank not tanky enough? Swap a weapon for a shield.
Then you take your armada on the run, smashing through hordes of kaiju until you just can't anymore and earning permanent upgrades to the mech armada as a whole before your assault peters out and you start a new wave of destruction.
Mech Armada is sitting at about 90% positive Steam reviews. Having spent some time with it this afternoon I was quite charmed. What at first seems like a fairly simple tit-for-tat combat system reveals itself to be about optimizing how many hits you can take and avoiding conflict when it's not to your advantage. As bigger, nastier foes show up you field bigger, nastier guns, building a new and unique set of synergies from fight to fight.
You can find Mech Armada on Steam for $20, or 20% off ($16) until July 7th.
