Stormgate fuses StarCraft and Warcraft in new gameplay footage
Developer Frost Giant hopes to make Stormgate the next big RTS game by fusing elements from beloved genre entries such as StarCraft 2 and Warcraft 3 together – and given that the studio was formed by former Blizzard Entertainment employees working on those two games, it’s probably got the best shot out of anyone to get close to that popular formula.
This DNA clearly shows in Stormgate’s first-ever publicly released gameplay footage, which debuted at the PC Gaming Show 2023. We see the game’s lead co-op designer, a former pro player in Hearthstone turned game developer, face off against a former StarCraft 2 pro in a match involving one of the two factions in development right now, a civilization of humans (the other is a mix of StarCraft's Zerg with Diablo's demons; Blizzard's genes run deep in this game).
Sporting aesthetics somewhere between StarCraft’s Terrans and Overwatch’s vision of the future, they mostly rely on mechs and other high-tech machines in combat. We see soldiers wearing power-armor (with both ranged and melee weapons), mech walkers, siege tanks with powerful (and dodgeable) area-of-effect attacks, drop ships, and dog scouts that seem to have a slowing ability.
The Vulcan looks like a mix of StarCraft's Marines and Overwatch's D.Va – not the only example of Blizzard DNA in Stormgate.
Frost Giant
The two players show off different strategies, one going for an economic fast expansion and the other being aggressive right from the start – Frost Giant has always claimed it wanted to make a competitive title, and it’s sticking to that. However, Stormgate seemingly won’t be as demanding as StarCraft 2 mechanically: the game speed looks a good deal slower and units have more generous pools of HP, so fights are not over in an instant and players have more time to react to developments and use the abilities their units offer.
Stormgate gameplay reveal: key highlights
While there are no hero units to be seen, Warcraft 3-esque neutral creep camps that provide additional resources dot the map. Terrain plays a role in battles as well, with line-of-sight blockers providing tactical opportunities and blocking certain kinds of units. However, it seems like some units can actually destroy these areas, changing how that part of the map plays.
Aesthetics, economy, and design philosophy should instantly feel familiar to anyone who’s played any of Blizzard’s modern RTS games. When it comes to making a spiritual successor to those titles, Frost Giant seems to be on the right track.
Stormgate aims to include a single-player campaign, a co-op mode, a competitive 1v1 mode, and more casual team modes when it launches. The focus of this gameplay reveal was definitely on the competitive side, though, so anyone waiting for news around the more relaxed game modes will need to stay patient.
Closed gameplay tests for the free-to-play PC title will go live in July and are scheduled to last well into 2024. You can wishlist the game on Steam to keep tabs on it and follow our coverage on videogames.si.com.
