Strategy autobattler Mechabellum has hit 1.0 after over a year in Early Access

Thought bots

I don't know why we haven't written about Mechabellum before now, but we haven't. Let's correct that. It's an autobattler in which you plonk down squads of stompy robots then watch them win or lose against your opponent's army based on the formations and upgrades you've chosen. After more than a year in Early Access, it's just released version 1.0.

Visually Mechabellum's robots are reminiscent of Supreme Commander, but SupCom was set across huge maps where victory had at least as much to do with economy management as your fighters on the frontline. As an autobattler, Mechabellum frontloads your decision-making in the buying and positioning of units that will then fight without your intervention in arenas that are relatively tiny.

That means the strategy lies in which units you choose, how they complement each other, where you position them, and how you upgrade them. Fights happen over several rounds, with chances to re-tool your setup in between. During the battle's themselves you're mostly free to just enjoy watching the explosions, although you can call in airstrikes and make other limited contributions to the flow of a fight.

Mechabellum launched in Early Access last May and has been well received since. The 1.0 release doesn't seem to make any major changes, but optimises the visuals and performance and introduces a multiplayer rank system.

I haven't much interest in playing 1v1 against strangers online, because I don't want to have to learn a meta or read guides for the best builds. I'm not Matt Cox (RPS in peace). I do fancy watching robots shoot each other with rockets, though, and I've enjoyed similar strategy autobattlers like the tug-o-war of Warpips. I'll give it a go against the AI at some point.

Mechabellum is available on Steam where a 30% discount means it's currently £8.95/$10.49/€10.35.