Incognita: Klei's XCOM-Inspired Espionage Tactics Game

Beta coming in "a few months."

Incognita is not like any Klei game you’ve played before.
The history of Klei Entertainment’s games shows a gradual decline in kinetic aggression and a steady growth of thoughtful, contemplative play. It’s “turn-based tactical espionage,” says Klei founder Jamie Cheng, where you’re breaking into and stealing from the most secure places in the world. “In the majority of turn-based games, positioning is your number one priority…From our standpoint, we wanted to make a game where information is one of the key things that you want.”

We didn’t want it to be a visceral experience. We want it to be cerebral.

Cheng says 10% of XCOM – a massive influence on Incognita and something Incognita designer Jason Dreger adores – is about information while the remaining 90% is “putting your guys in the right places and holding position, whereas in this game, if you’re caught in the wrong place, you’re going to die. So you need to hack, secure security cameras, you need to find out where enemies are and be smart about it.” Otherwise, your team will die, and they’ll be gone for good – akin to XCOM, permanent death plays an important role in Icognita’s strategy.
Line of sight plays into obscuring the player’s vision, but the world is procedurally generated, so randomized level designs keep you from knowing where enemies are or gaming the system for the fastest, easiest solution.
“When we’re thinking about the feeling of espionage, we didn’t want it to be a visceral experience,” Cheng says. “We wanted it to be a cerebral experience.” It’s important to Klei that you think about the importance of your next move on the grid. Like Don't Starve and Mark of the Ninja, there are systemic options that play into player actions as much as they do the pace. And while Incognita absolutely draws from those games -- Cheng says some describe it as Don't Starve and Ninja's baby -- it's altogether a mechanically different beast.

Incognita is coming to PC first at an unspecified date, with Mac and Linux coming later. Cheng says Klei aims to have a PC beta ready in a few months – similar to Don’t Starve, the team is soliciting live feedback from players as they explore their first foray into turn-based tactics. Cheng says Incognita’s beta will be “more about finding what experiences [players] having and whether or not it’s hitting our core vision” than simply adding to an established core.