Into the Breach: Advanced Edition is out today with new squads, pilots, Vek, and more

So many new ways to save or doom the future

The massive free content update Into the Breach: Advanced Edition is live on all platforms today. It adds not only some new squads and enemies, but missions, weapons, music, and even a new difficulty mode.

This new update from Subset Games is pretty big, perhaps even more than you might have anticipated. Thankfully, Subset has posted a patch notes breakdown of what’s new for Into the Breach in the Advanced Edition.

If you haven’t played Into the Breach before, well, you should probably fix that. It’s a turn-based strategy game from the makers of FTL: Faster Than Light, and it blends roguelite loops and careful, strategic decision-making with massive kaiju battles. It rules.

The Into the Breach: Advanced Edition adds a ton of new content. Five new squads, with 15 new squad achievements, can take the field to stop the apocalypse. Four new pilots and 10 random new abilities for them can also hop into the cockpit. Plus, 39 new weapons and pieces of equipment will give players’ squads new tools for splattering enemies.

It’s not like the Vek forces will just let that go, though. Seven new Vek and three new Psions, as well as 10 new boss battles, are all added in the Advanced Edition. There’s also a new difficulty mode, Unfair Mode.

The impending apocalypse

As Subset notes, Unfair Mode is for veterans and a bit more challenging than normal. There will be more situations where damage is inevitable, so you might need to make more decisions about taking grid damage or sacrificing a pilot, or possibly failing a mission objective. Grid power gains are thankfully doubled, so it’s easier to pull back from defeat.

There are some larger changes too. Requirements for reactor power usage on weapons have been lowered, so players are more encouraged to try out equipment they find. In exchange, the cost to purchase weapons has gone up by 1 and store options on the first two islands will be limited.

A new weapon mechanic, KO effect, has been added. This will let weapons trigger an additional effect if the target is killed by an attack. The Boost status is also new, increasing the affected unit’s next attack by 1 (which sounds really good for big area attacks). And a new tile mechanic, Cracking, will literally crack the ground. Once a tile has been cracked, a second hit will destroy the tile and anything standing on it.

The cost of unlocking squads with coins has also been lowered, to account for all the extra squads joining in Into the Breach: Advanced Edition. And all of the new content, like enemies and pilots, can be toggled off if you’d rather play the base game experience. Balance changes won’t change, however.

Add in seven new languages and two new tracks from composer Ben Prunty as well, and this is a frankly huge update for Into the Breach. It’s wild that this is rolling out for free, but if you have Into the Breach on PC, mobile, or Switch, it’s available right now.