Strange Brigade

two words come to mind here: underrated & overpriced.
underrated because it's a really good game but seemingly few people want to play it. that's a shame, really.
overpriced because a friend bought me this game on release and it was 80€ for game + season pass. i got around 15 hours (story missions only with dlc missions, without multiplayer time and other game modes) out of it. that's really not much.
the presentation of the game is superb. great graphics, solid story, very good voice acting & humor and fun gameplay. big maps for fighting, looting and exploring. there are lots of treasures and secret areas hidden in the world and a lot of undead need killing with lots of guns and various traps. also there are a lot of fun puzzles and the occasional mild jump scare for some laughter. it's really big fun.
obviously this game was designed for 4 players co-op multiplayer but playing alone works perfectly fine and you get the full experience. that's not an easy feat to pull off.
however multiplayer with either friends or strangers will obviously provide more fun, action, chaos and carnage but it's not mandatory. there are different characters with different abilities and various weapons to choose from.
sadly there are no custom or randomly generated maps so replay value is kind of questionable.
the game has 9 missions + 3 dlc missions and each of them takes 60 to 90 minutes on your first attempt depending on how serious you are about exploring. plus multiplayer, highscore hunt and survival mode but if you don't care about any of that it's game over after around 20 hours.
i replayed most of the game in multiplayer mode with my friend and went for 100% achievements and ended up at around 48 hours. but that's really the upper limit of what you can expect from the game unless you are totally hooked on its multiplayer mode. which i doubt since you can't replay the same maps forever without getting bored after the third time or something like that.
still, all in all this is a very good game and well worth the money. as long as you get it for a more reasonable price...

Overview
Strange Brigade (SB) is a single player and co-op third-person shooter set in the 1930s. The discovery of Seteki's Tomb (ancient Goddess of the dead) by a British expedition threatens the entire world because of a curse. The Brigade, composed of the world's finest adventurers, is called in to put an end to this threat - while recovering other powerful artifacts that may fall into the wrong hands. Not only brawn but as well brains will be essential to succeed.
🟩 The Good Side
Tales of guns, puzzles and secrets
While primarily a shooter, SB has a strong emphasis on secret hunting and puzzle-solving. Each stage has multiple primary and secondary enigmas to solve, mostly as combination doors of different types. On top of that, collectible Cats and Jars give additional rewards if all are found across a location. Adventurers will ideally spend an equal amount of time between fighting undead hordes and solving puzzles / finding secrets - this gives gameplay frequent pacing variations that prevent it from being too much one-sided.
Tools of the trade
Each of the four available adventurers has different passive and active skills, that suit them best for close or long-range combat - other than different applications. For instance, only one of them is able to open Glyph Doors found in levels. All the brigade members have the same guns, but also four unique active abilities each - unlocked with skill points gained by finding a certain number of Relics (secrets) in levels. These active skills are often very useful or powerful especially if combined with accessories or other members' own skills. There is a decent variety of weapons and character skills to try.
Seteki's finest
Enemy variety is solid across the board, with each stage introducing at least a few new foes. From simple reanimated cadavers to elusive assassins or devastating bomb-throwers - all the way to mighty mini-bosses such as the Champions of Seteki - combat never gets dull as far as variety goes. The presence of many traps in each level that can be used against the hordes, but also being a threat for one's allies, further expands combat possibilities. Some enemies may also require a special approach in order to be defeated, when conventional means fail.
🟥 The Bad Side
Now THIS is overpriced!
It takes around 6-7 hours to finish the game on Hard difficulty, this with taking time to find most collectibles and secrets as well. The additional modes such as Score Attack and Horde add no new content and are just a filler for achievement hunters, that most players won't find worth doing. The title is sold at a blistering 50€ default price, delivering also not-so-stellar quality overall. Insanely overpriced for what it delivers.
Indiana Jones cringy wannabees
The story and characters are an absolute truckload of cringy catchphrases, embarrassing situations and unnecessarily over-the-top moments that fail to be amusing. Combined with the obnoxious narrator that always seems to be desperately trying to be fun in a forced way, the story becomes an annoyance very soon. Stereotypical in its developments, repetitive and just bland, the narrative of SB is a miserable affair at all times.
Balance, where art thou?
The game fails to properly diversify the various weapon classes and give them a distinct feeling based on their role on the field. The starting murder tools are borderline garbage no matter what - while among mid-tier weapons, only Sniper Rifles prove to be worth using as they adapt decently to all situations without downsides. Shotguns, pistols, SMGs are at all times mediocre. The last and most expensive weapon (Aubley Rifle) is the definitive one, combining SMG rate of fire with Sniper damage, making any other weapon obsolete. The same concept applies to character abilities, only few being really worth using.
Rating: Decent
Click here for the complete Rating Chart
It took me and another 3 friends 6-7 hours to complete the story, then one can replay it on higher difficulties or try the other modes in case. For the blistering price of 50€ and only decent quality, I recommend waiting for at least a -75% sale or browsing the internet to find a better offer. Not worth full price at all.
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In-Depth Breakdown
🎮 Gameplay Analysis
Gameplay is divided into Exploration, Combat, Puzzles and Character Setup.
Exploration
Is performed on foot across reasonably vast locations ranging from abandoned dig sites to haunted caverns. While exploring, an abundance of breakable objects and small Gold piles are present to collect - while also ammo piles and potions are found fairly often to replenish resources. Keeping an eye out for Chests, Relics and Secrets is essential to collect large amounts of cash, skill points, weapon upgrades and lore items one may find in them. Many of such containers are locked behind puzzles or secret paths in each level.
There is no local map and levels often have one-way drops that prevent backtracking after them. Collectibles include Diaries filled with (unremarkable) lore, Cat Statues opening a door before the end of a stage if each is found, and Jars whose purpose remains a mystery, probably just collectibles.
Combat
Plays out like a third-person shooter with no ADS, even for snipers. Enemies range from simple undead to much more dangerous advanced ones: most share the same weaknesses such as headshots, melee knocking them down ready for a finisher and traps instantly killing most of them on the spot. Using character abilities at the right moment is important to escape the most intense fights, while also activating traps and explosive barrels scattered around helps a lot against overwhelming numbers.
In case of death, players can be resurrected by a teammate at the nearest Sarcophagus - this can happen infinite times and is really cheesy, as a 4-player team even on Hard, will rarely be wiped out. In case of a team wipe, the level will restart from the nearest Checkpoint. Special weapons acquired from crates costing Gold are potent, but only have one magazine and cannot be replenished.
Puzzles
Are found in each map and mostly are about inputting the correct combination in a door, by finding clues lying around. Some other puzzles are more unique and often related to the main quest. Solving these enigmas grants access to Relics and other useful treasures, often in the form of Gold and Gems.
Character Setup
Can be done before a mission or at a Weapon Table in any level, the latter unable to purchase new weapons or swapping characters though. Each weapon has 1 to 4 Gem slots, using gems found in Chests to enhance that weapon with the relative buffs, such as armor penetration. Characters can freely choose their Amulet (special power) between four each, carry one Primary and one Secondary weapon. New arms are bought with Gold kept at the end of each mission, while Gems can only be found and Amulets use Skill Points from relic sets.
Technical Corner
Specs: RTX 2080Ti, Ryzen 9 3900X, 32GB RAM, 970 PRO NVME SSD
Critical Problems
None.
Performance
Average VRAM Usage: 4.1 GB
Average GPU Utilization: 30-35%
Settings Used: All Max, 1440p 60Hz
Overall Optimization Rating: Decent
Bugs & Other Issues
None.

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The gist of it:
The Strange Brigade is a fun zombie killing coop game with an interesting focus on traps and puzzle-solving.
👍 The good parts:
+The puzzles are quite good and do spice things up from shooting zombies.
+Quite good level design.
+Large number of enemy variety.
👎The bad parts:
-Boss fights are not that interesting.
-With the exception of one particular enemy most of the game is easy even on the highest difficulty.
Story
You play as The Strange Brigade, duh, a set of unique individuals each with their own background and set of skills, roaming the world in hopes of stopping a powerful "mummy" named Seteki that can raise all the undead.
Don't expect a mind-blowing story with plentiful plot twists and whatever else. It's a simple zombie killing game where you're tasked with defeating the bad guy and thats it, game over. What does make Strange Brigade a bit more interesting than the usual crowd, at least in regards to the story, is the narrator.
The narrator is a funny but cringey individual who will always narrate, duh, whatever happens to your characters as well as make specific remarks to non-story actions such as dodging or reloading or solving something which was pretty cool.
Story rating: 7/10
Gameplay
Strange Brigade is a third-person coop shooter that comes with some puzzle-solving mechanics. You can select from a decent number of characters each with their own unique special powers or amulets as the game calls it and a set of weapons that you can "upgrade". It's not the classic sense of upgrading but as in you find a rune and attach it to the weapon you want which gives it whatever unique upgrade you found such as setting enemies on fire.
The skills or amulets, in this case, are a skill that can be used to either crowd control the enemies or damage them. You can only carry one amulet and it's rechargeable based on the souls you collect from slain enemies. You also have access to a set of throwables and just like the amulet you can only pick one, that can range from mines to frost grenades.
The puzzles in the game are nothing you haven't seen before, from matching symbols to finding the right path towards the treasure. The main treasures you collect in the level can give you skill points that are used to unlock more amulets so it's relatively important to find treasures in the map but not mandatory.
Overall the gameplay was more fun than I expected and the puzzles themselves while not hard at all did spice things up from the usual zombie slaying. Speaking of zombies, more than half the game, you'll keep encountering new types which I think was another good thing. My only issue was that the difficulty, at least in coop, was not that hard. There were moments where we died a lot due to one particular type of enemy but other than that it was kinda easy.
Gameplay rating: 8/10
Audio
The voice acting in the game is pretty good, and even your own characters have voices and will talk throughout the levels. As I mentioned before, the narrator does most of the talking and while most times he's cringe as hell, he does a good job at it and was quite funny.
The music is pretty good as well though rarely noticeable and as for all the other sound effects, guns, enemies, etc. they're all pretty good, nothing really worth talking about.
Audio rating: 8/10
Graphics, performance and tech analysis
The game looks quite impressive at times with some beautiful vistas and some really well-designed maps. It's mostly linear but the depth of it and how well the puzzles fit in the environment was no easy task. Also a shoutout for creating so many unique and interesting looking enemies.
The game runs without any issues in regards to performance and we had almost no bugs whatsoever while playing it so quite impressive overall.
Graphics, performance and tech analysis score: 8/10
Conclusion
I think Strange Brigade is a good coop game with its unique blend of puzzle-solving, trap launching, zombie-slaying gameplay, and a good start to a coop franchise if they ever make a sequel. It's short and the original price was certainly too much however these days it goes on sale quite a lot so if you have friends give it a try, it's quite fun.
Final score: 7.7/10

Strange Brigade is what a like to call a Triple B game. It is a smaller production but feel superbly polished and has a charm of its own.
The characters are interesting, the game looks great, the story and the overall lore is enticing enough and while not being the best third person shooter out there, the gameplay is really decent.
But the best part is probably the narrator which does an amazing job overall. Its integration is superbly done and most of his one liners never gets old (especially those about cats)
I originally had the intention to only try it a bit when I got it in a bundle and I end up finishing the campaign, playing with friends from times to times and collecting almost all collectibles.
I would say it is really worth picking. Especially on sales.

Strange Brigade
Strange Brigade is the new idea property of Rebellion, maker of Sniper Elite games. It is possible to summarize the game in the simplest terms as "Left 4 Dead-esque" that attaches importance to the story.
Story
Although the main story of Strange Brigade takes place in the 1930s, its origin goes back 4000 years. The barbarian Queen Seteki, who reigned in the Sahara Desert, was dethroned by the self-fed public and imprisoned in an unnamed grave. Finding this tomb in 1930, Edgar Harbin reluctantly releases the Queen's hateful spirit to the world. Our team, Strange Brigade, also comes into play. The UK government, aware of this incident, sends our team of four to Africa to infiltrate Harbin's expedition and destroy Suteki.
Get to Know the Team
There are four different characters in the game, and each character has their own signature weapon. Gracie, for example, does not leave the house without a shotgun and explosives, as is the case with the engineer classes in other games. Archimedes, on the other hand, likes to hang out with his semi-automatic rifle. The characters also have their own unique skills. For example, warrior Nalangu's Raging Auro skill can blast enemies within a certain circle. On the other hand, Frank, a soldier, uses his Dynamite Dash skill to jump into the air and make them explode when they fall. As with any co-op game, the road to success in Strange Brigade is team play and communication.
What Is This Game? What are we doing?
As I said above, Strange Brigade is a Left 4 Dead-esque game. In other words, it is a shooter with co-op gameplay, where you try to fight against the enemies that flock to you by progressing through the levels. In Strange Brigade you will shoot a lot of mummies and a strange group of supernatural creatures released by the Queen.
You have the chance to find different weapons on the maps and improve these weapons. At the same time, your skills can be improved just like your weapons. Due to the nature of the game, you will have little chance to breathe in each episode, because mummies will really flock. But don't forget to go to the extreme places of the map and find the secrets offered by the Sahara Desert during the moments that you catch among the hordas.
Short Short
• Even if four people play the game, everyone will have their own loot. In other words, a random person will not come and grab the weapon you find under difficult conditions.
• Although it has a gameplay similar to Left 4 Dead, the two games are quite different from each other in terms of tone and atmosphere. Strange Brigade's goal is not to scare or surprise you, but to keep you in the action at all times.
• When you enter the alternative paths in the missions, you will encounter many puzzles and hide besides loot.
Thanks for reading :)

Steam Curator : ==> Right to the Point! <== Follow
Inspired By The Best!
Have you ever imagined how would be a game inspired by some true classics like "Indiana Jones" , "Tomb Raider" and "The Mummy" (movie)?What would be the result if we could combine these three?This is what probably Rebellion's developers imagined and the final result is truly amazing!
The Story
The game takes place in Egypt around 1930.You take the role of an adventurer that will try to stop the evil queen "Seteki",that has returned after 4,000 years to bring chaos and terror.In order to achieve that ,you will have to fight enemies like mummies,scorpions,minotaurs and other mythological creatures.The story won't get an award as something original,but for sure it supports the whole idea very well.
The Gameplay
You can choose one of the 4 playable characters,each with his own unique ability.There is also a good variety in weapons from pistols,shotguns,rifles,machine guns and many others,that can be shared with any character.So the only thing that is unique when choosing a character,is the character's unique ability.
Strange Brigade's core gameplay consists of two main parts.
The first part is to fight hordes of enemies.There is a very good variety when it comes to enemy types.You will have to fight mummies,scorpions,skeletons,pirate mummies,bugs,minotaurs,bosses and so many other creatures.Here ,we clearly see, that Rebellion has used the same successful formula that used in their other very successful series "Zombie Army".So the players who have already played at least one of the "Zombie Army" games know what they can expect.Also a great variety in external traps can make our life easier,as we can achieve glorious and satisfying environmental deaths.
The second part is the puzzle solving.Every time you successfully beat an enemy horde and reaching a new point,you will have to solve a puzzle in order to progress or to just find a secret that will help you.The puzzles are not really hard,you can say they are just basic but very well-made and fit the whole concept.You can say they are inspired by the OLD "Tomb Raider" games.They have a very similar style.
The Experience
Aesthetically beautiful,so beautiful that i caught myself to really stop from time to time,admiring the beautiful landscapes and the natural environments.It really convinces that you are in Egypt.
Strange Brigade has also a narrator and (at least for me) ,is one the most brilliant additions in the game.He comments on everything you see or meet.With a serious but humorous (at the same time) style and a tone of sarcasm sometimes,he makes the game much more enjoyable.
The shooting system and the shots are exactly what Rebellion has used us to ,from their other series "Zombie Army" and "Sniper Elite".Very precise and accurate.
Strange Brigade has a very big variety in secrets and collectibles.My humble suggestion is, for those that like the exploration,to try and find them.They are very well made,neither too hard nor too easy to be found and this is the proof of great map making.
Conclusion
Aesthetically beautiful,with good variety of enemies,accurate shooting system,a great narrator,nice puzzles and many secrets for all the tastes it's a highly recommended game from me!
*The up-to-4 players coop can add even more points to the fun!
If you want to feel like Indiana Jones or Rick O'Connell from "The Mummy" and have some fun with friends or even solo,then Strange Brigade is the best way to do it!
Steam Curator : ==> Right to the Point! <== Follow
If you want to discover more games like this one and even more!
Thanks for reading!

#BEATEN - About 10 Hours
Playing Mostly Solo
Strange Brigade's campaign is a C movie inspired 4 player coop third person shooter that has:
- Linear levels but with lots of open spaces, optional paths, and secrets
- A minimal loot system (You fill out your inventory with gold collected)
- A good variety of enemies
- Amulet (Special) power - Turn enemies into chickens, shoot homing shots, etc. Charges via kills.
- Boss fights
- Puzzles
It also contains
- A score attack mode
- A horde mode
It is very tongue-in-cheek, complete with an over-the-top voice over narrator, There isnt really a story you will care about, but that isnt the point. It is fun solo (there are no bots) but obviously more fun with others.
A surprisingly good time