The single-player only sequel has a campaign with a decent story and difficult missions featuring lots of enemies. A series of skirmish games comprises the planetary conquest mode, and short squad missions are also available. The interface does now show idle worker units, but it sometimes indicates units are idle when they are simply pausing to collect resources. It is difficult to tell the difference between friendly and enemy units at a glance, and units sometimes do not engage enemies just outside of range. The economics has the same three resources, and general strategy involves the same generally inflexible (because of the resource requirements) build order, although a larger quantity of units is available. Outside of slightly improved graphics, a new campaign, and the conquest mode, Meridian: Squad 22 is the same real-time strategy experience.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyKWiiEvLVQ

If you've never played meridien before then prepare for frustration. There's no manual/user guide - you either have to fumble around yourself to work out how to do things or ask the (extremely friendly and helpful) community.

However, having to keep pausing the game to go log a question on the forum and waiting for an answer makes this game more of a turn-based game than a RTS...

It may be fun to play once you know how to play it, but... it depends how patient you are and how much of a pain you want to be by keep posting questions on game-play at the forum.

I was torn in deciding whether to recommend this or not, but in the end I have to say no. It has elements that, if tweaked, I feel the game would be so much more enjoyable.

Pro's:
1) Decent story, although there is a slight pause between each dialogue startup.
2) The way the resource gathering is designed is very similar to Starcraft, one of my favorite RTS games.
3) The levels have a very nice looking design and they make the attempt to be different from the previous map.

Con's:
1) Not nearly enough units can be produced. Starcraft and C&C 3 Tiberium Wars were so much more enjoyable to me because they allowed for a huge amount of units to be on the map at once. This game requires you to basically expand to another mineral patch before being able to build more units.
2) The maps do not let you place buildings anywhere you want. No matter where I try to build the building space always seems to be red. The same applies for where units can explore. Sometimes it looks like explorable terrain but your units can't really go anywhere.
3) A lot of the maps just feel like you're defending against nonstop waves of enemies that keep appearing from off the map. It gets repetitive very fast.

All in all to me some of these con's outweighed the pro's and I got bored real fast. As such, I can't give my full recommendation that this is an enjoyable game. But this is just my opinion so if you want to try out a decent new RTS then go for it.

Meridian: Squad 22 is a 4X RTS, in the style of the 90s games.
It is the second game in the Meridian series and is a massive improvement from the first one, Meridian: New World.
It's not required to have played New World to understand the story but it will give you more of an insight as to what's going on.

The game is made by one person and is focused on single player only.

In its current stage there’s 4 missions available but the story so far is progressing quite well and the missions have been fairly different from each other.
There are points throughout the story where you have choices to make which gives you different rewards.

You can only play as one faction but there are multiple AI factions with their own units for you to face.

There are three tech trees (combat, economy and defence) which lets you unlock new units, abilities and upgrades in an order you want.
This is done by collecting the three different research points (samples) scattered across the maps and making choices in the campaign.
In total there’s 17 different units available, including Infantry, mechs, tanks, naval and air.

There’s no Skirmish but there two alternative modes instead.
The first being World Conquest in which you fight on different territories against the AI and the difficulty increases from Easy to insane. As you get closer to the enemy’s HQ the harder the maps are. There are around 100 territories, give or take a few dozen, you can do as much or as few as you want to reach the main target. However the more maps you do the more samples you can collect.
Additionally there’s a fourth tech tree available in conquest that give you extra benefits.
Any excess points can be spent to ‘auto-win’ ‘Hard’ and ‘Very Hard’ territories to make it quicker and less of grind to get through.
The map generation is a little restricted in design.

The second one is Squad Missions, not yet available, but the name suggests extra missions you can do that’s not part of the campaign.



For those that have played Meridian: New World here’s a few changes:

Graphics and animations have taken a large step forwards and also includes camera rotation and zoom.
More units are available and introduces naval units too but customising weapons isn’t possible anymore
AI and Path-finding has been improved and less hassle.
Commander’s abilities and research have been merged.
- Abilities have been altered to use cooldowns instead of using up energy. There are less abilities. Heal also repairs structures.
- Research are carried on through missions instead of building a new research lab each time.

Anyone that has played and liked it should probably like Squad 22 even more.



During closed beta, the developer listened to all feedback and many changes were made, lots of AI balancing and better performance.
He’s always active on the forums for all his games.


Worth a try for anyone that likes RTS games, particularly campiagn and a challanging AI.

Developed by Elder Games and published by Merge Games & Headup Games, Meridian: Squad 22 is the sequel to one of my favorite real time strategy games made by an indie dev team. And I take some liberties on the term “dev team” since this title, much like the first one in this series, was also the hard work of a single very talented man: Ede Tarsoly. To create an RTS such as Meridian: New World took some effort. But to go further than that and launch another game just two years apart which irons out almost all the previous one’s flaws, is a feat truly worthy of admiration.

Meridian: Squad 22 is once again, a strategy game driven by a storyline. The novelty to this sequel however, is that a certain number of choices you undertake during some missions, will affect the following ones and subsequently the rest of the campaign. This provides us with a well deserved replay value even if the game itself is anything but short. I was most pleased to see that the pathfinding and general confusion of the AI on the map, are issues long gone. The skirmish mode takes place on randomly-generated maps so you always have an extra challenge, apart from the enemies which will be more aggressive this time around. In Squad 22 we now have the full spectrum of warfare, with the inclusion of both aerial and naval units compared to the the previous title’s predominantly land-based troops.

The game is richly detailed, from both the texture quality of the units & terrain and even the research tree, which really encourages you to explore and find research canisters (a shout-out to Starcraft 2’s brilliant tech advancement choices). You can’t really complain that this wouldn’t be a strategy title worthy of 2016’s relatively high standards.

The sound score has been composed by Hexany Audio and it truly gives this game, a soundtrack to match its looks and Sci-Fi atmosphere. And as expected, the voice acting is on par with the rest of the game sounds. An obvious step forward in regards to the less than enthusiastic voice work from New World.

+ Beautiful graphics and soundtrack
+ Steam Trading Cards & Achievements

- Still no multiplayer modes

Squad 22 is a clear example that you don’t need immense budgets, to create a fully functioning and aesthetically pleasing strategy title any longer. What a small team of highly talented people have proved, is how far we’re come in terms of game design over the last few years. As polished as this game is right now, the Early Access label should not deter anyone from purchasing it. Steam Achievements and Trading Cards are just the icing on the cake at this point.

Rating 8/10

This review was submitted for Elite Giveaways, check us out for more reviews ranging from Indie games to AAA titles.

i liked Meridian: Squad 22 and I will try to explain to you why.

I'm not a particular fan of the strategies, but this game I sunk into the soul. Perhaps its graphics and game guide for beginners. There was not any problem. All realized and began to play. Beautiful, interesting and valuable justified.
On my old PC, 2010, the game was at medium settings just fine. It made me happy.

If you like this genre, you'll love the game.

I Think this game is huge imporovment from the first game. But I would have liked to see a skirmish opation

Squad 22 is a pretty decent follow up game to the first Meridian game that came out a few years ago. Personally I've enjoyed my experience so far and if you've got 8 bucks I doubt you're be upset with your purchase. That being said, it doesn't stand out in some major field gameplay wise, but it's pretty fun regardless.

I'll give a better review when I can sit down and play a bit more!

A fantastic old-school RTS with an innovative research system. At the time of writing this review, there are only 4 campaign missions available, but it's all really great. I can't wait to find out where the story is going. The music and sound effects also blew my mind and to me, these are easily the highlights!

There's also a Conquest mode which gives you randomly generated missions to play. I can see how this could get repetitive in the long run, but for now it works really great!

A thumbs up from me, I definitely recommend this game!

Fantastic strategy game with lots of options and a cool campaign. The story and cinematic cut-scenes are amazing so far, and the research tree is very well done!

Recommended.