Few names are as recognizable as StarCraft and WarCraft when it comes to real time strategy. There have been many waiting for a successor to these titles, while they are great games, their active development and community has slowed down compared to the past. Its natural as the RTS industry has stalled out a bit, and many gamers even called it dead.
Stormgate is a new real-time strategy game from the makers at Frost Giant Studios, and they’re not holding back. It’s an exciting mix of large scale strategy seen in StarCraft, and detailed combat and hero micro similar to Warcraft 3. The RTS genre hasn’t had many new titles make their way on to the scene that’s not a sequel of some kind, so its exciting to see this new game take the stage.
Gameplay, something new, something old
Over the course of the week of December 4th we saw content creators, and streamers actively playing and showcasing the game. There were games of 1on1s and co-op play against some AI and convoy missions. While the format and many mechanics were familiar it gave a good overview of what’s being developed over at Frost Giant Studios.
Stormgate will feature a single player campaign that will help bring us into the world and lore of the game, and expansive multiplayer experience. Frost Giant has talked about featuring different competitive modes and co-op missions that will be different from the standard format. This could include having to complete objectives in the game that isn’t just destroy you’re opponent. These could range from capturing something, zone control, or other team goals. Standard player vs player is traditionally viewed as the most pure form of competition, and the way to erode variance. However, it could be interesting and exciting to have some PvE in a more competitive experience, and not just in a campaign scenario. Anyway around it, exciting to see new game play being explored.
Community thoughts
There’s some interesting and polarizing opinions on how similar some of all of this feels to the titles from Blizzard. However, StarCraft and WarCraft won out as some of the more popular and best designed games during the height of competition between RTS games. For a lot of players, many it makes sense to start with a familiar recipe that allows creative and competitive play. Also, a very real concern is voiced that hopefully we won’t end up with an under tuned StarCraft if to many things are heavily insired. No one wants to jump into a clunky want to be StarCraft. These existing games are stiff competition still for Stormgate, even if their community and development as slowed down. There’s years of refinment and optimizing that has gone into the existing titles.
While concerns are valid, Frost Giant is actively iterating and engaging the community with a sense of purpose, and goals in mind. It’s also good to keep in mind we’re in a beta phase, with a lot of iteration to go, and an entire other faction to see. One of the more prominent and strategic pieces of feedback is the coloring of units. This especially noticeable if you compare WC3 and Stormgate screenshots. It can be difficult to tell which units belong to who.
Another interesting item will be time to kill of units. With a more micro heavy game with higher hp units that allow for that more focused micro game play. The combination of these micro and macro could cause some issues. But with just going off the alpha game play, this issue could be void as we haven’t seen all final units, and more late game mechanics.
We’re around to see how Frost Giant handles these issues, but its so great to see a studio working on a new title. To many risk averse companies are afraid to create a brand new title, so hat tip to Frost Giant for getting into the ring.
Esports
RTS is always very competitive, and Stormgate will be no exception. With polished alpha gameplay and a mature dev team behind this game a lot of people are looking to see if it’ll be the next big competitive game. StarCraft came on scene in a way no one expected, and not just with how fun it was to play. It was incredibly engaging to watch. There was something that struck a chord similar to playing a sport. You could compete with others constantly bettering yourself out on the battlefield, and then watch the titans of the game go at it. The competitive scene of StarCraft and WarCraft really helped nurture the community of the game.
One big lesson to take away from the recent industry is the struggles of Overwatch to be as competitive as other titles such as Counter-Strike, League of Legends, and Dota in esports. While Overwatch was fun to play for many casual and competitive players, it was a bit of a light show and nauseating jump around combat to watch for long periods of time. More successful titles in esports have a slower paced back and forth overall, being much easier for viewers to understandwhats going on and whos inching ahead. With what we’ve seen so far, it looks Frost Giant is doing great at striking this balance.
Stormgate is bringing new life and a lot of discussion back to RTS games. It’s got a great mix of big-picture strategy and detailed battles. Whether you’re new to RTS games or a long-time fan, Stormgate is something to look forward to. Keep an eye out for more updates from Frost Giant!
