No Plan B

About No Plan B

No Plan B is a close-quarters tactics game developed and published by GFX47. It entered Steam Early Access in December 2021 and reached version 1.0 in April 2024 on Windows. You never control a firefight directly: you study a 3D map of a building, draw routes for each operator, and line up door breaches, grenade throws and room entries on a timeline. When the plan is ready you press play and watch it run in real time, with enemies reacting to what they see.

There are four factions, SWAT, FBI, robbers and gangsters, each with its own scenarios such as hostage rescue, escort, bank robbery or eliminating a target. The main mode is a roguelike campaign with a branching mission map, squad progression, unlockable weapons, shields and grenades, and an optional permadeath setting. There are also skirmish missions, a survival mode, a random mission generator and a built-in editor for community missions.

The daily challenge sits in the single missions menu. For each faction there is a daily, a weekly and a monthly challenge mission. The developer explained on the Steam forum that these missions are generated, with one common map for all players per day, week or month, so everyone plans against the same building and the same objective. Since the 2023 progression update, the score of your first try on a mission is the one that counts for the leaderboard, and rankings are split by difficulty and squad options so you are only compared with players on the same settings.

That makes the daily a short test of planning rather than reflexes: one fresh building a day, a first attempt that sets your rank, and a leaderboard showing how others handled the same doors and corners.

How to play No Plan B

1. Pick a faction (SWAT, FBI, robbers or gangsters) and open the single missions menu, then Challenges.
2. Choose the daily challenge and study the map, the objective and where enemies may be.
3. Draw each operator's route and place breaches, grenades and waits on the timeline so the team moves together.
4. Press play and watch the plan run; your score is recorded on the day's leaderboard.
5. Come back the next day for a new daily map, or try the weekly and monthly challenges.

Screenshots

Tips

• Your first attempt is the one that sets your leaderboard rank, so scout the whole map and check every door before pressing play.
• Time flashbangs to go off just before an entry: a few tenths of a second on the timeline decide whether a room is cleared or a teammate is shot.
• Leaderboards are split by difficulty and squad options, so pick the settings you want to be ranked on before starting.

Questions