Stormgate Reviews

Good game, reminds me of my Starcraft 2 days

Having tried Stormgate out over its lifespan, I will first state I only spent my first money on it with its latest update (0.5.0) overhauling the graphics, campaign, and gameplay. I was glad to see the graphics shift decisively towards a stylized gritty tone, which is more in line with what I was looking for from ex-SC2 and WW3 devs. The campaigns has the makings of a solid foundation, I am legitimately engaged now with the story that I look forward to seeing what happens next. Although I have mostly played Vanguard, the Infernals are appreciably much better looking as a proper threatening enemy (visually.) Very Doom/Diablo-inspired enemies with a distinctive and appealing visual style. I was someone who was looking forward to Stormgate, was left a bit disappointed with the initial early release, but now feel comfortable financially supporting this title and putting time into it. Interestingly, I find I am able to match with opponents quickly in Versus whereas over in SC2 its getting increasingly longer. I know some folks prefer their Age of Empires or Command & Conquer, but I love the old Blizzard RTS, and this has the DNA of those games with some major gameplay improvements. 1.) Built-in building and upgrades hotkey menus. Compared to the older Blizzard titles, Frost Giant has included a number of hotkeys to help make building easier. You no longer have to select a worker or a building to build something. Hit the menu, click the button, and tell it where you want it to go (building or unit) and the game will auto split construction queues to different buildings and will pull the nearest worker for the build, and then they will go back to work. This is an extremely helpful improvement for slower APM players like myself. 2.) Game speed - or fight length I should say, is longer than that of Starcraft 2 and shorter than Warcraft 3. Earlier builds had battles last a long time, close to WC3, but now they made finds run closer to Starcraft 2 times. So units feel stronger, more responsive, but give you enough time to issue commands and make mistakes without it costing you everything. 3.) Development and Improvement - Let's be honest, Stormgate felt a lot rougher than SC2 because it was in early beta. To an extent it still does, but since I started playing Stormgate, SC2's development and updates have gone from occasional to rare to now essentially frozen. Numerous bugs plague the game (to mention one, arcade maps can't be uploaded due to nasty video injections.) However, in the same time Stormgate has vastly improved in response to community desires. Honestly, the fact they came back in a bit less than a year with this much improvement makes me confident Stormgate has a firm base to be built up on and it feels good to play even now. Look folks, old Blizzard is gone, and while those games are technically still supported, the team left in charge has to split their time between 15 different games Blizzard-Activision is ignoring. Stormgate is actively being developed and improving in the style of old Blizzard RTS. What more can I say? Frost Giant has the Blizzard-RTS style niche nailed down stronger than any other game on the market.

Awesome RTS and its getting better and better with every Patch. The Multiplayer is a 10/10 since release, can easily keep up with Starcraft 2. Don't forget it's early access and F2P except of the campaign for sure, wich one is also awesome since reworked.

game is trash never more that a hand full of ppl online anymore everyone that is there is a day one you wont win matches campaign is still dogwater do just go download starcraft unless by some work of god this game get a sudden flux of players but i dont see that happening

mirror matchups are boring and keep getting matched against same players not a fun loop because of this

The Good: Stormgate has good bones. It is markedly improving with every update, and gives off a nice nostalgia factor to those who played Starcraft and Warcraft. I find myself having fun with Versus and Co-op. I genuinely enjoy playing it. The Meh: This game definitely needs more time to cook. It's pretty obvious that the Early Access is being used to get player feedback while FG is still building the game. Take EARLY ACCESS seriously. The Not-So-Good: Microtransactions this early in development was a definitive blunder. It definitely gave off the feeling that the devs were just out for cash. Players new to RTS may have some serious trouble getting into Stormgate. As a veteran of RTS (in hours played) but still a casual player, versus AI is a real challenge. On normal difficulty, enemy rushes come very quickly, and are quite dense. This can be brutal if you aren't on your game from the moment the match starts. Stormgate definitely comes across as a mix of Starcraft and Warcraft, but the split is about 90% Starcraft and 10% Warcraft. The nostalgia factor can feel layered on pretty thick at times. I could absolutely see Stormgate having an identity crisis in the future if they don't continue breaking away from their Starcraft/Warcraft inspiration. The races for sure need further balancing as well, but I'm confident this will be fixed in the future. Overall: It's an Early Access RTS taking heavy inspiration from industry legends. It's playable, and can be quite enjoyable for RTS veterans. Some to all of these issues could be ironed out in the future, so I'll update this as time goes on. This is a solid MIXED review. I don't really want to put Positive or Negative here, but I'll make this Positive since I have hope for the game.

Free to play from former starcraft Devs. Game is still early access but is still tons of fun. some of the negative reviews say it's a starcraft clone. No shit, it's the same people. Downside, not a lot of players right now. bigger the community, better the game.

Really enjoying the game after patch 0.5! Balance is much better, graphics are amazing, and the game is fun to play. :) Community is friendly, and editor has been recently added - so lots of fun maps are being added. Stormgate is a great new rts. :D

Tons of progress since the initial release. The campaign is way better, and the graphics are more in line with my ideal style. Gameplay still needs some balancing, but that'll happen for as long as this game is out.

The game feels too much like the devs did NOT have an actual vision or plan for the gameplay mechanics, but rather keep doing things for the sake of doing things and THEN seeing if players like it. Absolutely winging it and you can feel it. The factions don't feel coherent, they feel like pieces they stole from other games/ideas and then stapled them together. Here are just a FEW without going on-and-on-and-on-and-on... ::You guys like creeps? Sure! Creeps added, despite the creeping being incoherent and not well thought out. -- and there being no reason for them other than they forced it upon you. (no heroes or items) DO THE CREEPS OR LOSE! ::Wouldn't a flying Nexus be cool to see? Despite it being a huge annoyance and leading to degenerate game play where two Nexii play slap fight with their weakest unit helpers in the game and that's the round. ::You guys like scouting? We give you a scout dog that gets into the action within 40 seconds of the game and now everything is annoying. (Aw, but AoE had a scout!! Come onnnnn!) No this one sucks. ::Was Jarjarbinks and the Gungan siege weapons lobbing slow bubbles cool to you? Well the tanks in this game shoot those missiles and they never hit anything! Don't you want to make them and play with them now? Aw, come on guys! ::Do you guys remember stimpacks for Marines in Starcraft? Well we did too, but we don't want to copy it, so we switched it up and they work the opposite of how you want them to and if you ever want to retreat with your Stormgate marines, it will be impossible and they'll all die. Wait, you're saying that's not fun or cool? (or even immersive??? why would a faction in-lore would arm their troops with this?) If it ain't broke, snap that shit like batman's spine on bane's knee. We're innovating! ::Remember buster swords from FF7 and Zealots from Starcraft? Hehe, check out our blade dudes! Aren't they cool? Huh? Well, no, we don't know why this faction would arm themselves with these weapons when they have any other piece of superior technology (including chainsaws at the very least), but hey it looks cool right??? Aw come on guys!! ::Like strategic battles and taking decisive action? Watch for minutes as your armies take forever to fight each other getting clogged and stuck most of the time and the readability of armies being so low that your eyes blur and you just don't even feel like clicking on anything. Unable to gauge anything, you stay too long in a fight you lost two minutes ago, but at this point you don't care. There was nothing you were going to do/could meaningfully have done anyways. ::Remember the tired story line Blizzard used for Warcraft 3, Starcraft1, Starcraft2, and WoW? We used it AGAIN here and the initial good hero wants to be strong for good so badly ... they become bad! WOAHHHHHH WOAHH WOAHHHHHH!