Earlier this year, I got a chance to play Brigandine Abyss from the very beginning. The demo on Steam is still available if you want to experience it for yourself. There is also a console demo available right now for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch 2.
I was asked if I wanted to see more from the game, and I enthusiastically agreed. I was able to see a presentation about the game that more or less covered many of the phases I already learned about in the demo. Though we were able to see one of the other story mode factions. The demo only lets you play as two of the six factions. This presentation showed off another faction, the Samura Clan.
The presenter took us through the full round of phases in season 19 before an event battle occurred. If you find a rare item during your battles or travels, it will be automatically available to buy in the shop. That is great because you don’t have to worry about losing an item in case a monster dies during battle.
Class Changes
If a monster reaches level 10, it can change its class. The only downside to upgrading a class on a monster is that it increases the command points needed to keep it in a squad. Leaders have a command skill that sets the number of command points they are allowed to muster in their squad. If you are hitting the threshold of their total command, it might be best to hold off on upgrading a monster’s class.
When you send a unit or squad to a quest, certain quests have preferred class types. If you use a preferred class type, it increases the resources and experience gained. Certain monsters and leader units, when they change into classes, allow you to select a number of classes they can upgrade into.
Some resources that upgrade monsters to their third class are locked behind quests from specific cities. It is wise to look at what resources you need to upgrade for the third class upgrade and tailor your conquer route to include that base.
Event Battles
One of the things that the team behind Brigandine Abyss is very proud of is that there are 2D-hand-drawn cinematic scenes in the game. And they look gorgeous. This specific event battle started up with a cinematic. The battle takes place as Saya is ambushed by two of her enemies, who are starting to work together to get a fragment from her. Her friend Kiichi is beholden to a curse that forces him to reveal information to his father. His father then reveals that information to the two enemies.
Event battles are much different than the normal conquering battles. In normal battles, you choose three squads that are near the place you are conquering. In Event Battles, you can choose three squads from anywhere on the map to partake in the fight. These will likely need your three best squads to fight. Event battles can have more than three enemy squads to fight. It likely will require much more strategy than a normal conquest battle.
Even though it can have more than three squads, the mission for Event battles is still generally to defeat the main commander. You don’t need to defeat every squad to finish a battle. When you use a skill with a monster or leader enough times, you level that skill up. It can increase its power or reduce its MP consumption.
Magic skills have no chance of missing, so it is useful to have units that have magic in case you encounter high-evasion units. Once the presenter was done defeating monster units, one of the questions I was thinking about from my previous time in the game was, what would be the purpose of defeating monsters when you defeat the leader, and monsters go with them? Luckily, that answer made it into the presentation, with them talking about how defeating monsters makes it so they have to recruit new monsters for their squads instead of using old ones. Since enemy monsters can level up their skills too, it is wise to defeat them.
Once the event battle was over (I won’t reveal the ending as that would be a spoiler), we were able to ask questions of the team.
My Question
Story Campaigns are around 20 hours long in Brigandine Abyss. With that in mind, I asked about how long a mission mode generally is. The answer I received was that it varies. Some mission modes will want you to conquer the map; others will want you to conquer a specific base. They can range from a full 20-hour campaign to a few hours. To put this in perspective, there are six campaign modes that are 20 hours each. There are 24 mission modes. It is probably best to keep it at a varied finish time.
Brigandine Abyss looks to be making more strides for the end game, and I was happy to see more combat from the game. I do think the hard part of the endgame will be managing all the bases, and I will want to see how that goes in a normal battle phase that isn’t in an event battle. I am looking forward to the game when it releases.
BRIGANDINE ABYSS will release on August 27th, 2026, for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC. You can play the console demo today!
