A corrupt government seized an experimental AI at 75% testing and plans to switch it on for total control of the city. You command Sentinel — ex-special-forces operators and rogue computer scientists. Gather the intel. Re-code the model in secret. When they release it, it exposes them instead.
The year is 2030. The city still runs — barely. Services hold, but trust has collapsed and surveillance is everywhere. Into that fracture, the Directorate released a promise: an AI that will restore order. What they don't say is that they took it unfinished, that its creators warned it isn't safe, and that the chaos they're selling a cure for is chaos they're quietly paying for.
Sentinel knows the truth because Sentinel built the failsafe. Your job isn't to win a firefight — it's to move through the city, pull the real story out of the people who made the model, and rewrite it under the Directorate's nose. Do it right and their own machine turns witness. Do it loud, or lose too many of your own, and the city goes dark.
Ex-special-forces operators and the computer scientists who built the anti-AI failsafe. Only your scientists can re-code the model — and only your operators can keep them alive long enough to do it.
They take what they want and tear through anyone in the way. Dangerous, unpredictable — and for sale. Pull the right thread and they'll lead you straight to who's paying them.
Corrupt and patient. They hold the seized AI, run the watch-net, and secretly fund the Strays to manufacture the disorder their model will "solve." They must never learn you're tampering.
The company that built the model and got 75% through testing before it was seized. Scattered, scared, and not all on the same page — but the intel you need to win lives with them.
A tactical strategy game with everything in full view — roster, reputation, favors, intel, and every choice you've logged. Difficulty comes from tradeoffs, never from hidden information.
The city watches. Going loud raises your exposure; high heat means more agents hunting you — and detection risk when you inject the re-code.
Help civilians and bank recallable favors: intel, safe passage, a place to lie low. Trust is a renewable resource you spend carefully.
Your people are finite and named. The dead and the missing both count. Lose ten and the operation collapses — so every deployment is a real decision.
Gather fragments from CRADLE, then inject the rewritten payload while heat is low. Pull it off and the Directorate exposes itself on release.
An all-goes environment. Every confrontation is yours to read — fight it, talk it down, or slip past. Most situations have more than one way out.
Every outcome, casualty, and favor is written down as you go, and your run auto-saves — leave and pick the operation back up later.