Jagged Alliance: Back in Action is a remake of Jagged Alliance 2. It features the same story but has its own style of gameplay. The game is set in Aruclo, a fictive island which suffers cause of the mad Deidranna Reitman, a female dictator. The player character gets hired by the former leader of the country to kill Deidranna. To achieve this aim the player can recruit a team of mercenaries and send them to Arulco to free the country. In the beginning, players can buy cheap mercenaries only to conquer different sectors in the game. By conquering these sectors, the player gains resources as to re-invest to get better mercenaries.

As in its predecessors, the playing field is divided into two areas. The first being the Arulco map, where the player may view cities, own mercenaries, nearby enemy soldiers, and other locations. Here, the player can oversee movement of own mercenaries to coordinate attack and defense. The second is in tactical mode, where the player may directly control mercenaries (for the most part during combat or while exploring an area) and view them from a free rotating camera.

Back in Action is the first game in the series that introduces real-time gameplay. While the previous games in tactical mode were turn-based, this game uses a system called Plan & Go where the player can pause the game and give the mercenaries orders which they should follow. These orders can also be combined and bound to other actions. The main focus of the game is set on the tactical combats.

Besides the main quest, which is killing dictator Deidranna, there are also a lot of side-quests which can be solved to gain more money, items, or even new mercenaries. Some of these quests were available in the original game, however some new quests have been introduced in this game. During the game the mercenaries gain experience for killing enemies or performing other tasks. When the mercenary levels up, points may be distributed to increase their stats and skills. However, there is also a level 10 cap which prevents the player from having super-soldiers.

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