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Stormgate early access review: this StarCraft wannabe brims with potential, but makes a poor first impressionDrizzled veteran
Drizzled veteran
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Frost Giant Studios
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Frost Giant Studios
All of which has made me feel very tired, and yearn for the days when you went into a shop and bought a game in a box for a set amount of money, and the whole game was in the box and you went home and put it on your PC and played it until your mum said “Richard!” (only my mum calls me Richard) “get off that computer and go outside and get some exercise! Do you want to be dead at 35?” Well, I’m 36 now mum. Nearly 37. So who’s laughing through their heart palpitations now?
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Frost Giant Studios
Ahem. The most confusing thing about Stormgate, however, is that there’s a potentially interestingstrategy gamehere. Unfortunately, it puts its most boring foot forward first, with its intriguing trio of factions buried beneath a crust of focus-test approved blandness, and a campaign that has barely shown you anything good before it asks you to get your wallet out.
Unfortunately, the first way is, currently, the worst way. Headlining Stormgate is a six-mission single player campaign that puts you in control of the Vanguard: Stormgate’s technologically advanced human faction, as they fight a war against the Infernals, Stormgate’s demon faction. Its story revolves a hardnosed female soldier called Amara, whose father was present during the initial Infernal invasion, as she attempts to rally the Vanguard against the machinations of an Infernal called Maloc.
The narrative is distinctly Blizzard in its approach, from the flashy opening cutscene with expensive-looking CG animation, to the cursed sword Amara obtains early in the story that definitely isn’t going to corrupt her in some way. The trouble is none of it is particularly compelling. Amara has all the charisma of a Star Wars prequel Jedi, while the demons are all pantomime villains from the Clive Barker amateur dramatics society. It should be noted that developer Frost Giant has stated that some VO and animations are placeholder, but I’m not sure that fresh vocal talent would change the fact that Amara is terrible company.
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Frost Giant Studios
This dull wrapper contains some passable but unremarkable RTS missions. The freely available prologue has one character-focused mission that has you complete a level with a limited set of units, and two missions that involved building a base to conquer one or several enemy bases. All of which is fine, but nothing I haven’t seen in a thousand RTS' before.
Moreover, right now, everything I like about Stormgate has a big jiggly “but” attached to it. Base construction, for example, is slick and satisfying, with pleasing animations for assembling structures. Yet once built, I find the different buildings hard to parse visually, meaning I tend to forget which structure is which. Combat is flashy but lacks heft, especially when larger units duke it out. I like the quick menu that lets you issue construction and recruitment orders, but I don’t how selecting units and confirming orders are not universally bound to either mouse button. Left click should ALWAYS select units, Frost Giant, while right click should ALWAYS issue orders, even if you’re deploying a special ability, or confirming a building construction. Anything else is heresy. I have spoken.
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Frost Giant Studios
Instead, I went over to the game’s solo multiplayer and skirmish mode to have a look at the other two factions. It was here I discovered Stormgate at its most interesting. While the Vanguard may be a bit dull, the other two factions, the Infernals and the Celestials, are anything but.
Of the two, the Infernals are my favourite faction. Frost Giant has clearly thought hard about how to make them feel properly demonic. For starters, they don’t build structures, they sacrifice meat to literally raise them from hell. Each building you “construct” opens a yawning fissure in the ground from which your structure eventually rises. Likewise, you don’t really “recruit” units. Each unit type automatically generates a charges over time. Once a single charge is full, you can summon that unit instantly onto the battlefield. This means you can put together armies really quickly and rush them toward enemies for a nasty surprise.
The remaining faction, the Celestials, are less immediately engaging than the Infernals, but are arguably more intriguing because of how weird they are. Imagine if a bunch of Lord of the Rings elves got really into new age crystal bullshit and then started building aircraft, and you’ve got a vague idea of what the Celestials are like. Their worker units are literal blue prisms that absorb energy from resource sites, while buildings are constructed via biblically accurate angel units that morph into a selected structure on command. They’re slower to put together an army than the Infernals, with a heavy emphasis on aerial units. But if you can get those aerial units off the ground, the Celestials are very tricky to counter unless you’re adequately prepared.
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Frost Giant Studios
At present, Stormgate is a potentially good game that makes a poor first impression. Six missions, only three of which are playable for free, makes neither a good campaign nor a good deal, while the game’s most interesting factions are hidden away in the multiplayer, where you need to do a lot of on-the-spot learning to get the most out of them. All that said, I don’t think it’s a game anybody should write off. Behind its blandifying art style is a very tactically chewy strategy game. If you’re a fan of the genre and have friends who are likewise, there’s good fun to be had in its 1v1 multiplayer, which I should stress costs nothing to try out.
