Tactical RPG Beast practically came out of nowhere in 2023, entering its Early Access period on Steam to a groundswell of player acclaim and praise for its gothic horror stylings and snappy, responsive turn-based tactical gameplay. Beast joins a growing list of games that are boldly pushing the envelope in the TTRPG subgenre, building off the strengths of previous highlights such as XCOM: Enemy Within and XCOM 2 to bring something new to the genre. Where Beast truly shines, though, is in its incorporation of a sanity mechanic and tangible consequences for player actions.
Game Rant recently had the opportunity to sit down with Beast developer False Prophet, speaking with the studio game writer Michał Mochocki. The conversation sheds some light on Beast‘s various influences, the inspirations behind its unique spin on turn-based tactics, and how the game’s Early Access period has helped to shape its continued development as it nears its 1.0 release sometime in 2024. The following transcript has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Q: Beast is joining the ranks of several new games from Polish studios that put a spotlight on Poland. How does it feel to be able to communicate important aspects of culture and history through Beast’s storytelling and design?
Mochocki: There’s no Poland in Beast – at least not by its name. We have the Kingdom of Liakhya: a stand-in for the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Most of the game happens on the road to Liakhya from a fictitious micro-kingdom on the other side of the Carpathian mountains. It won’t be easy for foreign players to identify the Polish connection. If they do, they’ll find a lot of historical details, places, events, and characters from 16th-century Poland, Transylvania, Ukraine, Lithuania, and more. This is a sneaky way of showing Polish history and culture. We’re not shoving them down the players’ throats. We’re leaving them to be discovered by those who care.
Q: What are some of the prominent TRPG and Turn-Based Tactics inspirations at the heart of Beast’s combat design?
Mochocki: Gears Tactics and XCOM, and a few others such as Darkest Dungeon.
Q: Beast uses a gridless movement system similar to other recent tactics games. In addition to affording more flexibility in movement, are there any other benefits to abandoning the traditional grid?
Mochocki: Speed is the biggest reason to make it all more engaging (and a bit more dangerous, too). It just feels more modern to play games of this kind on maps where you can “go anywhere”, so to say, and explore more as you do. We’ve seen players try more things and strategies because of this.
Q: One of the more unexpected influences that players might notice in Beast is that of Darkest Dungeon, where Anton’s sanity is affected by how he treats both enemies and companions. What were the main inspirations behind including an insanity system?
Mochocki: Two things: Darkest Dungeon and Vampire: the Masquerade. Also, the old Call of Cthulhu RPG.
Q: Beast certainly doesn’t shy away from either psychological horror or abundant gore during combat. What are some of the team’s favorite horror inspirations across all mediums?
Mochocki: We play a lot with the good old Gothic pseudo-medievalism. Our invented self-proclaimed Kingdom of Carpathian Ruthenia lies in Transylvania, which naturally leads our twisted imagination to Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Our coachman, Igor, takes a lot after Igor from the 1974 movie Young Frankenstein. But the best historical horror stories come from historiography and legends about actual characters, like Vlad the Impaler and Elizabeth Bathory.
Q: What were some of the balancing issues that arose as a result of Anton’s transformation into Beast Mode during combat?
Mochocki: In our game, we wanted to make sure that every kill has some kind of consequence. You can play like an extremely evil leader and just work yourself up to insanity, but your allies and enemies will react to how you behave. Becoming a beast is not the end game here, it’s learning how to control it and what you’re prepared to sacrifice. Keeping the balance when enemies, for example, call for support or gain additional skills and rush to beat you (as you’ve transformed) is quite tough, but also makes the game more fun.
From a development perspective, it’s quite challenging to keep overall game balance, but just like in real life, you can be calm and collected and slowly advance or be a hot head and try to rush things. We need to balance both ways to play the game and sometimes you’ll be forced into one option, but regardless, the weapons and skills (and enemy AI) have to work accordingly. That is a constant thing we work on. It’s pretty challenging for us as devs too. More choices, more problems in balancing!
Q: How has player feedback continued to factor into Beast’s design and refinements during the Early Access period?
Mochocki: It’s been fantastic to align with the community on feedback and suggestions. It’s a healthy and kind core community of people who really care. Some things end up on a wishlist, of course, and that is a list we want to complete for sure, but as always with game development, time is always against you.
Q: Beast is currently sitting at a very impressive 85% Positive on Steam, with several of the more recent reviews helping that number continue to grow. How does False Prophet feel about the response to the game so far?
Mochocki: Our community patches and major updates have been well received, and we’re very happy about that. It’s really what makes it worthwhile when you’re working hard to fix things. It’s always very exciting to see how a new feature will be received by the community.
Q: What are some of the things players can expect in the content roadmap for Beast?
We have worked hard to deliver as much as possible to showcase the promise of the game at this stage. Players can, for example, play the game from start to finish with the recent update. A lot of polish and fixes remain, and we would love to release the game on consoles as well. Our Early Access is like a Kickstarter – it needs more backers now to enable us to fulfill that promise, so we’re hoping that all our work done to this point will be enough to convince more people to buy it!
Beast, like many other tactics games, is a perfect fit for the Steam Deck. The current Early Access version runs well enough with some tweaking of settings, but are there plans to have the 1.0 release Steam Deck Verified?
Mochocki: Yes, we love PC portables, so we’re working on this as well!
Beast is available now in Early Access on PC.
