Quick Links
We Are The Caretakerstasks players with commanding a sci-fi anti-poaching operation. As you progress through the story, you’ll scout the wilderness, tag vulnerable animals, and intercept enemies bent on harvesting the horns of the near-extinct Raun. The basics are easy to grasp, but the longer the game goes on the more strategy you’ll need to overcome the stronger threats you’ll encounter.
Related:Games That Promote Environmental Awareness
If you’re just starting your first playthrough, take a few moments to check out our tips. They’ll help you form better teams, win battles more efficiently, and ultimately get the best possible ending.
Enemy Moves Are Always Visible
At the start of each combat round, you’ll notice that every enemy has an icon over their head. This indicateswhich move they’re going to usein that round. You can hover over the icon for more information, and plan accordingly.
Knowing what your opponents are going to do is a huge benefit, and will become necessary to keep your team fighting.Stunning or eliminatingan enemy that’s about to unleash a powerful attack can save you a world of hurt!
Spend Reputation Like A Resource
Your team’s Reputation score has several effects on gameplay, and your actions will cause it to rise and fall often throughout the campaign. Killing poachers without due process, fleeing from battle, and accepting bribes willcause your Reputation to drop,while arresting poachers and turning them over to local authorities willincrease your Reputation instead.
A low Reputation causes you todeal more damage in combat, but lowers the quality of new recruits and the amount of money contributed by towns. A high Reputation has theopposite effects.
Even if you’re going for a high-Reptutation campaign, it can sometimes be expedient totake the occasional hit to your score.Often, detained poachers can’t be released or prosecuted without damaging your Reputation, but you can sometimesshake them down for intel or a bribe. If you’re going to lose the Reputation anyway, you may as well get something out of it! As long as your score isabove ninety at the end of the game, you’ll be fine.
Use Both Stamina And Will Attacks
Each character, friend or foe, hastwo health bars. Stamina, depicted in red, represents their physical strength. Will, shown in blue, represents their morale. Either can be reduced to zero to render an enemy vulnerable to a Finisher.
You’ll quickly discover that most enemies have a much higher Stamina than Will, or vice-versa. They also have different defense ratings for each; this makes it important to have abalance of Stamina and Will attacks on each of your teams.Otherwise, you could be stuck in a long fight as your attacks deal little damage.
We Are The Caretakers has an Achievement for completing the entire game without dealing Stamina damage to any character at any point. We highly recommend that you do not attempt to unlock this Achievement on the first playthrough.
Related:The Best Turn-Based RPGs On XBox Series X|S
Characters Aren’t Defeated Until They’re Hit With A Finisher
Unlike most RPGs, characters remain on the battlefield if their Stamina or Will reaches Zero. While in this critical state (represented by the character falling to their knees), they can be dismissed from combat if they’re hit by aspecial move called a Finisher. Every character, friend or foe, has access to different Finishers that will impact your Reputation and other factors.
Finishers are only available as combat options if an enemy is kneeling, and you can’t target non-critical enemies with them. This means you never have to worry about wasting a Finisher with a mis-click!
For example, if an enemy is kneeling, you can useWoundto finish them off, raising the chance that the other enemies will flee, or you can useDetainto arrest them. The latter increases your Reputation slightly, but you’ll have to decide what to do with the detainee after the mission, which doesn’t always leave good options.
The important thing to note is that your team also remains on the fielduntil a Finisher defeats them. This gives you time to heal, or to end the combat before an enemy can take them out.
Some Classes Are Only Available From Recruiting Enemies
Recruiting poachers to your team is a double-edged sword. It’s seen as giving criminals a break, meaning you’ll usually suffer a Reputation hit of as many as ten points each time you do it. However, reforming poachers to fight their former competitorsgives you access to skillsthat you wouldn’t otherwise have.
Enemy classes can’t be recruited from the normal pool of Caretaker applicants; the only way to get several powerful character types is to convince enemies to join your team. This can be done byusing a Diplomat’s Finisherto convert them in the field, or byDetaining them then offering them a jobback at base.
