Strange Scaffold’s new tactical RPG explores police authority, moral choices, and brutal turn-based encounters in a dystopian city.
Strange Scaffold, the independent studio behind I Am Your Beast and El Paso, Elsewhere, has announced Gods With Badges, a narrative-driven tactics game that puts players in the role of a police officer operating in a dystopian future. Revealed during the October Triple-i Initiative showcase, the project mixes isometric turn-based combat with investigations, dialogue choices, and a story focused on the consequences of wielding authority.
The story follows Harrow McClellan, a disgraced officer reassigned to her former posting after a scandal destroyed her reputation. Her return takes her to Scarhelm, a decaying futuristic city where policing involves much more than responding to armed threats.
Between dangerous encounters, Harrow can investigate complaints, confiscate illegal goods, issue tickets, gather evidence, and decide how to deal with the citizens she encounters.
Each decision influences her standing with colleagues, the public, and the institutions she serves. Harrow can embrace the reputation that follows her or attempt to prove that she has changed, with the narrative responding to her conduct throughout the campaign.
Turn-Based Combat With a Question of Accountability
When confrontations turn violent, Gods With Badges switches to isometric tactical battles featuring cover mechanics, hostage situations, and decisions about how much force to use. Keeping Harrow and her fellow officers alive is only part of the challenge. Players must also consider whether to arrest suspects or resort to lethal force, with those choices potentially affecting their careers and relationships.
One of the more unusual mechanics lets players temporarily switch off Harrow’s body camera. This unlocks additional dialogue options and tactical possibilities while removing the public record of her actions during that period. It’s an interesting way to connect a gameplay mechanic to the game’s central subject: the relationship between power, personal responsibility, and institutional protection.
Tactical preparation also comes into play through customizable officer loadouts, with different equipment potentially changing the available strategies during encounters.
A Canceled Strategy Game Gets a Second Chance
Interestingly, Gods With Badges began life as Hard Justice, an ambitious tactical project developed by Artificer that was eventually canceled. Strange Scaffold has taken the original foundations and development materials and reinterpreted them through its own creative approach.
The collaboration is part of the studio’s Project Share initiative, which encourages developers to exchange technology and unfinished work as an alternative way of creating games. According to studio head Xalavier Nelson Jr., Gods With Badges is among the most ambitious projects Strange Scaffold has undertaken.
The game will also feature an anthology-style campaign and a noir-inspired soundtrack composed by Kris Kirk, who previously worked on Space Warlord Baby Trading Simulator.
There is plenty here to keep an eye on, particularly how the developers intend to connect tactical decisions with narrative consequences. The bodycam system could become one of the game’s defining features, especially if the choices made during combat have lasting repercussions outside the battlefield.
Gods With Badges is targeting a 2027 release on PC via Steam, although the store page currently lists the release date as unannounced.
