Encased: A Sci-Fi Post-Apocalyptic RPG

Encased drops you inside the Dome, a colossal unexplained artifact planted in a remote desert in an alternate 1970s. The setup is genuinely intriguing: a corporate-military apparatus has colonized this anomalous zone, cataloguing its alien technology, and then everything goes wrong. You wake up in the wreckage and start piecing together what happened, who is still alive, and whether any of the surviving factions deserve your loyalty. As an RPG premise, it punches above its weight class. The retro-futurist art direction, equal parts Fallout 1 and Soviet-era science fiction, gives the world a distinct identity that I appreciate more with each hour spent in it. Character creation leans into classic CRPG archetypes. You pick a Wing (essentially your pre-Dome social caste, think SPECIAL stats with a Cold War flavor), assign skill points across combat, social, and technical disciplines, and watch those choices ripple through dialogue gates and combat outcomes. The five Wings give you meaningfully different starting contexts, not just different stat spreads, which does encourage multiple playthroughs. Speech checks, hacking, persuasion, intimidation, barter, lockpicking: the toolkit is here and it mostly works. Build variety holds up for a while, though min-maxers will notice that some skill trees front-load their interesting options and then plateau. Combat is turn-based and tactical, with action points, aimed shots at body parts, and status effects that matter. Fans of the original Fallout games will feel at home. It is not as deep as Wasteland 3, but it is not pretending to be. The enemy variety is decent, environmental hazards keep fights honest, and the Dome's anomalies occasionally introduce genuinely weird encounters. Where it stumbles is pacing: mid-game sprawls into filler quests that feel like XP padding, and some areas overstay their welcome by a full session. The writing is competent and occasionally sharp, but it does not reach the heights of its obvious inspirations. Companions have backstories worth following, though their reactivity to your choices is shallower than the opening hours imply. Faction alignment is the backbone of the late game, and the branching here is one of Encased's stronger cards. Siding with different groups does change how quests resolve and which endings you unlock. Whether those choices feel earned depends on your tolerance for the grind getting there. The 77% Steam rating lands about right: this is a solid, sometimes great, occasionally frustrating RPG from a studio that clearly loves the genre and almost nailed it. Bugs at launch dented the reputation, and patches have improved stability, but some rough edges remain. If you like isometric post-apocalyptic RPGs, have a soft spot for Cold War retrofuturism, and do not mind a mid-game sag, Encased rewards patience. If you need tight pacing and reactive companions from hour one, you may feel the seams before the story clicks into place.

Monika · Scout Team

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