The Lamplighters League

I went into The Lamplighters League expecting a competent-but-forgettable XCOM clone and came out genuinely annoyed it didn't find the audience it deserved. Harebrained Schemes, the studio behind the Shadowrun trilogy and BattleTech, set this one in an alternate 1933 where a fanatical cult called the Banished Court is racing toward world domination, and the only people standing in their way are a roster of loveable scoundrels, grifters, and outcasts. The pulp adventure aesthetic is fully committed: art deco locations, occult Scions with nasty powers like mind control and eldritch abilities, and a tone that sits somewhere between Indiana Jones and a hardboiled short story you'd find at the back of a '30s magazine. The worldbuilding is genuinely charming, even if the narrative doesn't quite reach the heights of Harebrained's best writing. The core loop is where the game earns its keep. Each mission opens in real-time infiltration mode, where you scout patrol routes, pick off isolated guards with class-specific takedowns, and set up your position before combat erupts. Saboteurs can disable traps and lay shock snares; Sneaks ghost past patrols and execute instant silent kills; Bruisers go loud, knock down crumbling walls to find secrets, and refund Action Points on kills, enabling satisfying multi-enemy chain turns. Most missions let you bring three agents, with special heist operations bumping that up to four. The turn-based combat that follows is the highlight of the package: swapping between characters at will to maximize the Action Point system, stacking a smoke cloud with a defensive field, or setting up an Ingrid kill-chain after whittling enemies down with ranged characters feels clever and earned. Synergy between the ten recruitable agents is the game's best design feature. The problems are real, though, and worth being upfront about. The real-time stealth layer never fully delivers on its promise. Detection feels inconsistent, enemy AI has a tendency to run aimlessly in the wrong direction when alerted, and the camera during action sequences clips into geometry far too often. Later in the campaign, the game starts throwing enemy types immune to takedowns and able to see through stealth, which effectively breaks the infiltration phase and forces you into straight tactical combat whether you want it or not. Mission variety also wears thin across the runtime: level layouts reuse tilesets noticeably, and objectives can blur into one another. There is also a card-based perk system layered on top of skill trees, with cards granting buffs or negative traits depending on whether your agents accumulated Stress or injuries during a mission. RNG influences both the card pool and Phenomena modifiers that shift mission difficulty, which will frustrate players who prefer deterministic progression. At launch, save-wiping bugs and performance drops on high-end PC hardware were legitimate complaints, though patches addressed the worst of it. The context around the game is worth knowing: Paradox wrote off the development costs shortly after release and significant studio layoffs occurred before the game even shipped. That turbulence shows in places, particularly in the rougher technical edges and a final act that feels slightly compressed. But it also makes the coherence of what did ship more impressive. The characters have distinct voiced personalities, the world has real texture, and the turn-based combat system holds up well past the midgame. Players who like the Shadowrun Returns formula, enjoy XCOM-adjacent tactical depth without the full base-management overhead, and can tolerate some jank in the stealth sections will find a game worth their time here.

Monika · Scout Team

RPGs

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