Goin’ out there and makin’ something.
It takes a certain amount of courage to leave behind a big company to start something of your own, regardless of any circumstances surrounding said company. But that’s exactly what the team at Frost Giant Studios did; they left Activision Blizzard when it became apparent that there wasn’t going to be a followup to StarCraft 2 anytime soon. And they instead put all of the things they wanted to do into a new RTS game they’re developing: Stormgate.
But Stormgate‘s got more in the tank than just being a spiritual successor to StarCraft 2. When you look over the project as a whole, it’s more than just another RTS; it’s the next evolution. As the press release states:
Stormgate is coming to Windows® PC via Steam and will be free-to-play. Players
will be able to take part in a wide range of game modes and activities including:● story-driven campaign missions, playable solo or with a friend
● fully-integrated in-client esports, including 1v1 ranked matches on the
competitive ladder and team-based 3v3 with unique win conditions
● a cooperative 3vE (three players vs. AI) mode, featuring meta-progression and ways to customize army abilities to create powerful synergies
● expressing their creativity and design skills with the in-game Editor
● custom games created by other members of the community
● spectating matches and leveling up IRL with enhanced learning tools
As Tim Morten, CEO and production director at Frost Giant Studios puts it:
We are building Stormgate for the real-time strategy community–past, present, and future. Our vision is to create a social experience that breaks down the barriers that have kept people away, to welcome back players who have been waiting for the next great RTS, and to prove that the RTS genre can thrive once again.
Tim Morten
One thing they do plan to address is the loneliness they got reports of from StarCraft 2 players. Even after adding Campaign co-op, they still got those reports. And in an era where the modern MOBA pretty much eats the RTS’s lunch, it’s not exactly hard to see why. That’s where the 3PvE comes in; a mode that pits 3 players against a horde of enemies with meta AI. Per Frost Giant’s other founder, Tim Campbell:
To give a good team experience, we have to do something different in those modes than just simply have three different 1v1 matches going on in the same map. I think that’s been a flaw of team-based modes in traditional RTSes: you feel like you’re playing siloed matches in the same game session. Unless one team deathballs together and just rolls across the map, the player on the left is playing against the left opponent and so on. In our team modes we’re making bigger changes in order to facilitate collaboration between players, to facilitate interesting back-and-forths between teams, so you don’t have traditional problems where one player gets KO’d early in the match and then everybody else plays out this foregone conclusion.
Tim Campbell
There are a wealth of features, the Tims want to see in the game proper. Right now, though, Stormgate is in pre-beta. That said, the potential is definitely there. And I’d argue that if you’re a fan of RTS’s it’s definitely one to keep an eye on, which you can either do at PlayStormgate, or the game’s Steam page.
Source: PC Gamer
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