DEFENSE MISSIONS
Missions where the player protects a static objective — a base, a payload generator, a settlement — against waves or a timed assault, inverting the usual attacking posture.
- SOLO-DEV COST MEDIUM
- TIMING REAL-TIME / TURN
- COMMON IN TACTICS · STRATEGY · TOWER-DEFENSE · SHOOTER
XCOM 2's retaliation missions defend civilians, They Are Billions builds a whole genre entry on colony defense spikes, and horde modes from Gears of War onward formalize the wave structure. Designers use defense missions to cash in the player's investment: everything you built — turret placement, base layout, squad positioning — is suddenly tested, which makes construction decisions retroactively meaningful. Defense also flips map knowledge; the player owns the terrain and the enemy must come to them, rewarding preparation over reaction. Key decisions: whether the objective has its own health pool (creating triage between defending it and preserving units), how much warning and prep time precedes the assault, and whether attackers path predictably (tower-defense-like planning) or adaptively (forcing flexible reserves). Pitfall: defense missions that spawn enemies from arbitrary directions on a timer erase the value of preparation — the mode only works when the player's pre-battle decisions demonstrably matter.
SEEN IN
- XCOM 2
- THEY ARE BILLIONS
- GEARS OF WAR (HORDE)