When Blizzard ended the RTS, it was a huge blow to many. Not just for fans. The company didn’t want to push money into the genre anymore, so even the most experienced developers took off and went elsewhere. Some of them founded Frost Giant Studios and worked on strategy Stormgate. The DNA of Starcraft is noticeable there, but with the game they are trying something different, something new and something that allows them a significantly smaller budget. The game was not missing at Gamescom and I went there to play it. But you can do that yourself, it was already released on Steam in Early Access and it doesn’t score that much. More importantly, while playing it, I talked to Tim Mortenwho leads the development of this game. We talked about what worked, what didn’t work, how they plan to fix it, and whether the RTS genre actually has a bright future ahead of it.
First of all, we evaluated the situation together, which may not look so good at first glance, but several imaginative games are being created, behind which there is a group of experienced creators. Various publishers have snapped up experienced veterans and are now trying to bring something different. Tim has already tried some of those games and he himself admits that they are good. Probably the biggest upcoming RTS is BattleAces from Tencent, which is pumping decent money into the game. Slipgate Ironworks has been preparing Tempest Rising in the style of Command & Conquer for a long time, and ZeroSpace, which wants to be a bit like Starcraft, but with an AA budget, looks good too. Tim also pointed out IMMORTAL: Gates of Pyre and says that we are currently experiencing a revival of the RTS genre. But he adds in one breath that these are all smaller teams, no Blizzard, EA and big publishers.
However, it is interesting that Tim does not see all these games as competition: “We have friends in all these studios. We are not trying to compete with them. We believe that if any of these games succeed, it will be great for RTS as a genre and we will be able to keep it going“. He compares it to the era of RTS games back in the day, when series like C&C, Warcraft, Starcraft, Age of Empires or Total Annihilation were very popular at one time. Each of them was a little different, and even now each of these games is different. So he hopes that they will be equally and together successful now.
But how are they trying to reach new players with Stormgate? According to Tim, this is the breadth of the offer. They have a mode for strategy purists in the form of 1v1. But with other modes they try to target newbies as well. There you will find heroes with unique abilities (which you can focus on in cooperation) or an AI assistant in the form of BuddyBot. There are also many adjustments in the control and interface, which are supposed to make the whole thing more pleasant from the user’s point of view (for example, in the form of commander cards). Well, they’re relying heavily on co-op, which they want to have throughout the game, so later on it will come to the campaign, and in October we’ll see a 3v3 online mode where you can also play with friends: “I think all of these UI tweaks help, but more than anything, it’s best to have a friend to pull you into the game.“
I also had to ask Tim about where they got their inspiration from, whether they just wanted to bring back something in the style of Blizzard or whether they drew from other sources as well: “The game is somewhere between Warcraft and Starcraft, but with new elements added to the mix. More than anything, we wanted to refine the core concept, not throw away everything we’d done before. It’s actually a love letter to Blizzard’s RTS.According to him, a third of the game is the same as we know. Another third is a variation of familiar elements, and the last is something completely different. They know it didn’t quite work out and they value player feedback. At the same time, however, Tim has the impression that the players expected something different. Something that Stormgate was never supposed to be – Starcraft 3. But they are still indie and a small team without a big budget. But they are listening to the fans and hoping that players will realize that they are trying something different with the game and one day they will reach the level of success that Starcraft had.
I tried the game, I enjoyed it, Tim and I talked about their plans and feedback, but mainly about the state of the market and the RTS genre as such. Before we parted, I wanted to address one more important issue with him. Does he think we’ll ever see interest from major publishers in making AAA RTS games again? According to him, there is a chance: “I think if one or more of these indie titles really break through, it could create a business case for major publishers to create a new RTS. To be fair, Microsoft is still building Age of Empires, so it’s one of the few major publishers still dedicated to the genre. We’re big fans of the World’s Edge team at Microsoft, they’re kindred spirits.
But yes, building an RTS is associated with a very high technical bar. High unit counts require a lot of additional technological development, which cannot be done out of the box with engines like Unreal or Unity. So there is a barrier to creating new RTS games – building this core technology is expensive. I’d love to see a return to the mid-90s era of RTS games, even with FMV sequences and such. The team behind Tempest Rising tries to capture a bit of the tone of Command & Conquer, though it’s more CG than live action videos. We look forward to all the RTS games that come out.“
Source: www.sector.sk
