Having announced the F2P RTS Stormgate during the opening Summer Game Fest showcase, the team of ex-Blizzard and Starcraft developers at Frost Giant Studios has shared a first look at gameplay from their debut game. Stormgate will be enter beta in 2023.
OK, so that wasn’t really all that much gameplay, but it still got the essentials across, right? Stormgate is a free-to-play strategy game set a few hundred years in our future. Thankfully it seems that we’ve survived the modern day issues facing the human race, but on the downside, we’re now battling through a brutal demonic invasion… The human resistance and the demonic invaders are the first two factions to have been revealed, but the game will have more factions announced in future.
The game will put plenty of emphasis on playing together. You can tackle the main campaign solo, but it’s also playable in up to 3 player co-op. That also feeds into the online multiplayer, which will support 3v3 battles, as well as the 1v1 fights that will surely be popular with competitive players. Expect a push to make this into an esport.
In terms of gameplay, RTS fans can expect it to sit somewhere between Starcraft 2 and Warcraft 3 in style, with hero units sure to be integral to success and failure. As a F2P game, I’m sure it’s those same heroes that you’ll be able to earn or buy cosmetic items for – they obviously promise that the game is not ‘pay to win’.
Here’s the original announcement cinematic from earlier this week.
Frost Giant Studios was founded in October 2020Â by a pair Blizzard veterans, Tim Morten and Tim Campbell, in the wake of the poorly received Warcraft 3: Reforged. The rushed and bungled launch for Warcraft 3: Remastered reportedly led to Blizzard restructuring ‘Team 1’ within the studio in late 2020. Outside of remasters, it’s felt like Blizzard has abandoned the RTS since Legacy of the Void launched in 2015.
