Everything We Know About Frost Giant's New RTS: Stormgate (And My Thoughts About It) 

When I first heard of frost giant studios, and that it was made from a bunch of X blizzard devs, I thought it was a spite group. Once the scandals in blizzard we're revealed it was a lot more reasonable for them to have left. Now that I see how loaded the companies talent is I am actually excited.

8:40 One of the things I really hate about SC2 is that the vs.-AI modes are all about attack waves. Look at your own Starcraft 1 videos, where you are strategizing things like which base to attack, so you can relieve the pressure on yourself. 99% of the time in SC1, the assets exist on the map or are created through normal production, which allows you to strategize what happens. In SC2, units are generated on timed intervals. It doesn't matter if you clear the map or if you turtle up, you're going to get hit the same regardless.

"I just read the storyline on the wiki like everybody else." Everybody except the Wiki Writer Guy. Thanks Wiki Writer Guy.

I trust Morten made the free-to-play choice from a well-intentioned angle, but I can't help but be skeptical of any game's development when their plan is free-to-play from the get-go. It means that invariably, monetisation becomes an active part of the game's design. Any game element could become subject to the whim of a dev thinking 'what if we did something profitable with this?' Of course, depending on the devs this isn't a large problem: setting up code to be able to asset swap in case of skins, updating pathing AI to be able to port over smoothly to DLC maps, etc. But those are parts of development that usually are there already for the sake of future-proofing. I personally feel that just slapping an upfront 20-40 bucks price onto the game lessens the monetisation aspect of development, allowing the devs to focus on the game for the sake of the game before the sake of the company coffers. I'd much rather see the game be priced to begin with, and then going free-to-play over time like StarCraft and Team Fortress did.

I believe the best term to use for looking forward to Stormgate is "Cautiously Optimistic" -- if it meets the expectations, you'll be there with everyone else hyping it, but you'll try to avoid your own hype until then because you're uncertain if it will fly... or flop.

I get the impression you were given early access to this stuff because you've become at least reasonably well known for a professional and polite presentation of in-depth information and analysis about rts games, while also having a finger on the pulse of some pretty active community stuff for Starcraft 2. Don't downplay or question why you're being noticed Grant!

"Things are more interesting when each faction has a little bit of good and a little bit of bad." I think this is a big source of the problems with SC2's story. Someone must have thought that people wouldn't enjoy playing as the bad guys for and entire game, so the writing department had to come up with a story that would see the player in charge of the good guys in each game.

Grant you under-sell yourself. You provided excellent, constructive, but most importantly honest feedback. You are genuine with your words and it is refreshing. Honestly this is one of the main reasons I watch you as a creator. So, Grant people appreciate your input and it makes sense that Frost Giant reached out to you.

Unfortunately my reaction is “don’t do that, don’t give me hope.” If they manage to pull off everything, or even half of what they said that they’re planning to implement then I will be overjoyed, but the only AAA studio that I don’t feel overwhelmingly disappointed in right now is FromSoftware. I suppose you could also see it as that we’re overdue for a new heavy hitter. Damnit grant, you’re making me drop my wall of cynicism and angst again

Co-op is a huge point for me as it's the sole reason I keep coming back to sc2 every couple of months, and it's the reason why i tried out different things in the first place. I don't mean that as in multiplayer, but as in just the other races, like zerg. I never had any interest in playing any zerg commanders until they released dehaka, who has zerg units, but has the production of terran or protoss. It made me want to branch out and learn how to play other zerg commanders, which I realized was just make 4-10 hatcheries each map. If I ever end up playing stormgate, it will be really interesting to see how they try to tie all the different modes together, and to see if I would ever become interested in multiplayer.

That ending....🤣 I thought I was imagining the cut-off, so replayed the last 10 seconds. Just for it to happen again.

When my friend first told me "Ex blizzard developers. Making a new game. It's tech vs demons." Hellgate London alarms started screaming in my head.

This game needs a good and well thought out campaign. Imo many RTS games fail because they are only esports focused and ignore the casual mass of players. but the casual players keep you afloat. Blizzard's games were so succesful, because they had great campaigns (some of the best in the genre history) and great competitive multiplayer

This video is why you were invited. Youre an amazing asset to our scene! Loved the end.

This is actually really exciting! Normally im kind of bored and apprehensive whenever i hear about this kind of stuff, but this adresses and helps many ussues i have with rts. I hope it turns out how you describe.

I personally prefer 10v10 strategy games where I, an introvert, can hide inside my team so to speak. 1v1s and even 3v3s can get really personal but a big player count such as a 10v10 with smaller unit numbers to control is perfect for me. This is a camfort I learned from Wargame: Red Dragon's 10v10 tactical games.

Their focus on competitive from day 1 raises a MASSIVE red flag for me, that’s what happened to Overwatch and Heroes of The Storm, they got hyper focused on making a brand new idea competitively viable, without remembering competitive scenes are made naturally, and then it turns into a one dimensional [blank]fest. What’s so bad about staying casual? Must everything be *perfectly* balanced? Sure I get nerfing the OP thing everybody and their mother is abusing, but at least make it more interesting for the rest. I’m cautious for now, wouldn’t be the first time ex-developers made their own company and failed to make a good first impression because either them or their followers had their expectations too high.

6:55 UE5 Doesnt reduce "lag" in any way. Its just a toolset with good graphical potential. All Lag issues are solved by writing good "rts-engine" for simulating the game + networking code. Thats why they said in the interviews about their deterministic engine they created for this game.

Thanks for the update, keep me posted. Cheers.

I wrote this comment without watching this particular video all the way through but I remember watching your previous RTS analysis videos and you bring me great comfort that you're helping us to stay connected with my childhood company and developers at Blizzard. I've been with them since the 90s, not as much right now but this video is great news for me to see their former developers continue.

I like the concept of having rank games having 3v3. Solo play is still good but imagine 2 players going on the offence and one watches the flanks forming this trifecta of strategy filled with cheesing, skirmishes, and head on fights

One of the main fears that I have is the possible lack of diversity in the playable "races". One thing that, in my opinion, allways made Blizzard RTSs stand out was the possibility of playing many different races, with wildly different mechanics and feels to them, while still being balanced. I hope that along this Human Vs Demon we can also get some other interesting factions, ora at least significantly different subfactions (like the coop commaders) to have variety.

This type of content is gold, in my opinion. Great work Grant!

Really good and honest analysis. Thanks.

AoM music that takes me right back to my childhood, love it! AoM and Starcraft 1 were basically my entry to gaming :')

I personally find watching team games a lot more interesting than 1 v 1's in Age of Empires 2. Never liked them much in Starcraft though... the graphical style/game just always made them hard to follow.

Haha alright, nice cut at the end there. This and your AOM retrospective video earned yourself a new sub today good sir.

That cut off was amazing!

yea ok this game is cool and all, but I think the game is bad until I see gameplay of it. so many games this year have just shown promise and then as soon as gameplay is shown or whenever people get to play it, it falls apart. I really want to be excited for this game, but I just gotta get gameplay first.

im personally hoping this game doesnt focus heavily on intense micro. I love fast paced strategy games, but people generally take that to mean "200 apm micro" and not "something happened, you have half a second to make a decision about how to handle it" I like making long term plans on my eco, and positioning and movement of my military, and having to adjust those plans in the ever chaotic heat of battle, and the person who wins is the one who can make decisions faster and make better decisions, not the one who can micro their units better in the middle of a fight tho I also recognize im in the minority here. I think there are a lot of people like me who just believe the RTS genre isnt for them, and I dont know how to reach those people if they exist. I would hope theres some way to design a game for both pro and anti micro people, but I honestly dont believe its possible

Nice ending heh. And a good summary, thanks Grant

This is a great video and im very happy it was made as i hadn't heard about the new information from frost giant. Many of the thoughts are well put together and interesting to listen to. I also find it amusing at 16:45 he is taking about zone control and losing a whole army to artillery units.... but shows a toss army a-move stomping straight through a lurker position

On the 5 seconds of cutscene we got, I'm gonna say it gives me big 'Hellgate: London' vibes. And I'm okay with that. That being said, Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment. I will not hope for this, but I *will* forget about it for now. If all goes well, I'll be pleasantly surprised next year with a good product. Otherwise, well... Didn't put too much stock into it in the first place.

I'm happy to hear about lowering the skill floor. I played a few hundred 1v1 SC2 matches but eventually gave up because it was too frustrating to keep track of both macro and micro. It feels like the game just isn't made for those that can't muster at least 100APM (I top out at about half that).

I felt the same about the cinematic's sound design. Nice video, nice ending.

I am deeply excited for Stormgate, and it looks like Frost Giant did take into account your survey you did. Which is really really neat.

I wouldn't see the "intended duration" of a competitive game to be 20min as a firm target but more as an indication of how fast the game flow is planned to be. E.g. The average StarCraft game (as a guess) will be between 10-15min (averaged over all skill levels) but it can be over in as little as 4-5min with an un-scouted cheese. AoE4 on the other hand you are more looking at 25min+ average game time and generally even with a successful cheese, players wouldn't normally tap out at the 5 min mark but more at the 10 min mark. The game flow between the two games is significantly different. When they say that they aim for 20min I think it says more about how quickly cheeses will kill rather than how long someone can stretch out the inevitable on the other end but that's just a personal opinion/guess.

i also found the cinematic sound design to be quite bland. hopefully the final product will be better. look forward to seeing gameplay

The Age of Mythology sound track playing in the background made me feel nostalgic for RTS games

I'm seeing a lot of incredibly encouraging things coming out of this, and very much looking forward to how it goes. The idea of turning RTS back into a social experience, well it's one of the cores of your channel. You do, at least for uploads here, basically exclusively 'single player content' in a social way. Interacting with the people who make the content, your partners and their channels and audiences, and of course your own audience. The alienation and isolation of 1v1 ladder is probably the most repellent thing to me in RTS, the fact that the sum total of your interaction with other players during a session is, if you're nice, typing glhf and then GG, and if you're not nice, going on Artosis rants in general chat about how the opponent is not following the rules. Then again, I prefer PVE to PVP generally, and from that perspective there is a lot to like from what we're seeing so far. Here's hoping.

I really like the general game plan. Fix what's wrong with RTS and add new content later.

I believe one of the biggest issues with modern RTS is the fact that they are competitive/esports first, fun later

congratulations on 100k sub man

"I am exited" "Need a Medic" "Rolling out" Nice cut in the end!

Water doesn't have terrain? Only if you're not thinking creatively. There could be whirlpools, shallows, reefs, and areas with a current.

THE thing I care about the most about the user generated content is that the editor is ACCESSIBLE. I do not understand how is it possible that 30 years ago, when I was a child growing up all map editors were so easy to use that a literal child could spend more time creating than Actually playing the game. And then StarCraft 2 came out, they were like "This is the most powerful user generated content tool ever made" - and all those years down the line I STILL DO NOT KNOW HOW TO MAKE A CUSTOM UNIT WITH AN ATTACK. And I'm a game developer. So yeah let's go back to having editors that let you actually do simple things easily. And reserve the rocket science to when you want it to send a rocket to the orbit shall we? Another thing I really, really, really want - is achievements in the campaign and a return to player profiles being a summary of how awesome you are

The natural barrier system you're talking about was in Starcraft 2 as well, at least at the start of WoL when everybody was playing it. 4v4 was very popular, it's after a lot of 4v4 that I finally got into 1v1.

1:49 "And for some reason me" Holy s*** Grant you're making it big time. You're very good at what you do, that's why you were included. Very happy for you, keep it up!

Hey Grant, how much do you know about the Age of Empires 2 scene? I think it provides some really interesting insights into how team games can be a part of a ranked play ecosystem. Basically all of the top AoE2 players participate in team game tournaments ranging from 2v2 to 4v4, and they're often some of the most interesting tournaments. AoE2 also has some really interesting dynamics where there are lots of goofy or experimental tournaments that use unconventional maps which sometimes end up changing the game meta for more standard maps or more often influence the future ranked map pool. After years of SC1 and SC2, I've gone back to AoE2 as my main RTS because the team games are so much fun and provide a more social and less stressful ranked environment than 1v1. Admittedly AoE2 is different from either Starcraft, and seemly different from Stormgate, in that the civilizations (factions) are more similar than different and there's a much larger pool of them, but I think examining the AoE2 scene could provide a lot of supporting evidence for the way you view team games and user generated content in RTS. Thanks for your work keeping the genre alive!

From what you've said, here and in another video, I get the impression that they know enough to understand the problems that need to be tackled, but I'm not going to be hopeful about this until I see an alpha. There's so many ways to fail, even in great conditions, and between that art style and them touting free to play, I'm concerned about their potential monetization strategies...

Thanks for your thoughts! I am so looking forward to this, although... Coop stuff I don't have people to play with much

Congrats on 100k subs!

It’s sounding too good to be true. I’m really excited to see more

I definitely think you've missed a bit of RTS history here, there's heaps of games that have a lot of focus on team games. Aoe 2 and 4 have tournaments all the time with massive prize pools that cater to team and solo games. These guys aren't doing anything revolutionary I think you've just been stuck in the Starcraft scene for a while haha. And the multiple media projects could be good, there's been plenty of games that have had companion media like movies, books, comics etc. Some are lacking but a lot, like the mass effect stuff, are pretty good

"...because terrain is interesting, and the ocean just doesn't have that" *shows footage of ships passing through a choke point*

Your Point about sound is absolutly important! And please do awesome Unit reactions. I know most non RTS Gamers do not understand that but it is so important to give a Unit a personality and to have good voice Actors creating unique Units. I play RTS since 20 years now starting witht he age of 7! And I really did not understand the written words. I just played and had fun with voice Actors. Now about 20 Years later I still hear their voices and have my favorit Units from all over the different strategy games like: WC3, SC, SC2, Age of Mythology, Command and Conquer, Empire Earth... Also I do like the 3-4 Race System SC2 or WC3 had. But do not forget the Hybrid factions. Terra + Zerg combinations are awesome. Bloodelves are (underpowerd) awesome. If you implement co-op as core feature there can be great combinations of the unqie faction units and maybe also something that fits so well togeather that it could be a combined use of both Art- & Playstyles. this can also combine a offensive and supportive faction with a fitting hole of a massiv tank for example. thanks for your insight.

I really liked the ending of th-

1. Good that you recognized that there is problem with plot of "good guy and friends" vs "bad guy and his henchmen". I still remember SC1 days where all factions had their own agenda and nobody was obviously good. 2. If you think water terrain is bland then check Supreme Commander 1 and Heroes of Might and Magic series. 3. On the topic of Supreme Commander - it would be nice if there was building synergy, like in that game. In Supreme Commander, building energy generators next to factories would lower energy cost of units in said factory.

amazing finish! loughted so hard

With a focus on ground combat, non lethal zone control can be easily done with things like an overgrowth, debris or a flooded area to slow people down. Caltrops where the units slow down to avoid damage and fighting on them causes them extra damage would be interesting.

I like that their approach is campaign/coop first, which is a good thing, because when you think of it, starcraft one and warcraft became pvp games, but they werent built as pvp games; give me hope this may be a good game as a result and not something that ends up rather bland. And i agree with the high tech humans vs demon angles being interesting: makes for an interesting faction matchup (an we have yet to see the third playable race), and reminds me a bit of rise of Legends as far as being an unusual mix (that one was steampunk industry with a touch of Da Vinci's inventions vs 1001 nights arabian magic users vs alien tech in stone constructs with an mayincatec design) as a sidenote.. man that mech design is just Dva's mech with a starcraft marine texture on the canopy. Its TOO blizzardy for peeops that should distinguish themselves from blizzard

I'll be honest, when I first saw the trailer I thought this game was an Overwatch/Firefall clone and tuned out before it finished. Even after remembering who Frost Giant was and rewatching the trailer, I don't see anything that screams "This is an RTS game" to me. This video is the only reason I'm putting this game on my radar and that's not a good sign for their marketing team. Here's hoping future trailers do a better job than their first trailer did. That said, I am excited for 3 player coop. Looking forward to seeing what they do on that front. Still a bit worried about the free to play model (past RTS games that started out as free to play never seemed to get off the ground), but if they do it like Starcraft 2, then I can see it working. Just hope they don't fall prey to the "Here's your overpowered faction/unit for $99.99" down the line.

hey grant, just recently found you thanks to the hype around StormGate and the Developers actually doing everything right to create something that I hope takes the World by Storom, pun intended. anyways I know big things are in store for you as well ^.^ thanks for Loving RTS and the Community as much as you do! Keep up the great work sir.

I'm really excited about the game, but am more excited for the 100k SUBS!!! Congrats a LOT GRANT 🎊🎊🎊

I hadnt followed this game so it was a surprise to me when I saw the trailer yesterday, and honestly as all I had to judge it by was the trailer it immediately struck me as a run of the mill action game, and a poor one at that once the action started. Still given the pedigree of the people behind it I can only wish they succeed.

When you said Stormgate and with demons and Sci Fi another game jumped into my mind and that is Hellgate. It was a very cool game, but I did not managed to grasp all the lore. I hope the game turns out good, but for now we must wait and see because, to be honest, a lot of new games turn out bad or even awful (Diablo Immoral) so I really hope this works, but as I said. We must wait and see what happens.

Hadn't heard of this title before, because I don't follow gaming news, so big thanks for highlighting this. I think you're right though, too early for hype train, but has loads of potential. Definitely glad to hear 3v3 is a focus, gonna try and wrestle 2 of my other SC2 friends into considering this!

Congrats dude you are almost at 100k subs!

I'm going to be a bit leery about this, since the last studio that I've heard of that had a bunch of former Blizzard peeps and a famous author that tried to make it big was Red 5 Studios, and we all should know how Firefall went. Was burned on that, and will keep it like how I do most games nowadays. Wait for it to release, see how well it does, and if it's decent buy it on sale.

Im only really interested in story and crafted AI opponent experiences. Competitive taught me I get super stressed trying to keep up. I dont want that. As for the game, I think its foolish to assume this will be a starcraft level game even with the talent. Most things that get that big including starcraft 1, league and among us where designed for just a few hundred thousand (or in among us only thousands). And that focus on a core audience experience and core gameplay being polished is what elevated them.

Wow ! The cliff hanger thats ends the video was great :)

Congrats on 100k subs! Thought you were always there though tbh

Based on this video, i've deduced that fros giant's goal is to change the world. Very promising goal, but realistically speaking, the amount of things you listed would be too much even for blizzard during its peak years, let alone now, or an indie studio with way less resources still. I'd love for all this to come true but something has to give, this is just too high of a bar

All of it just sounds too good to be true, so many AAA companies that have rotted and become greedy husks of themselves has made me so jaded. But this could be the Starcraft 3 I always prayed would come someday, especially if so much of its talent have gone on to Frost Giant. I have high hopes, but Im waiting to see more of the actual game before I start telling anyone and everyone about it.

I thought that footage of the interview was sped up but then I remembered that Artosis just nods that quickly.

Well played with that ending Grant, well played.

Okay, I have to admit after seeing this, I'm worried. Those screen shots don't look like an RTS. The zoom is too close, the units are too big, the terrain too... Full. If your base units are already intended to come in low number, that can create a huge problem in game progression and resource balancing. It's also bad for pathing. And then it also doesn't bode well for user jeneraided content because modders that go multiplayer tend to focus on higher player numbers and high unit count maps are also very popular - which could potentially cause problems in a system not designed to handle many units. I feel I have to add that that gameplay screenshot looks kind of ugly. It definitely feels more mobile game with too many colours and less serious RTS with a story I'm supposed to care about. Lastly, this may seem very petty, but the same guess for the title. What's with the stupid stylized O? The things I immediately think of are heroes of the storm and hearthstone because guess what: it's the exact same visual design. Just... Don't. More Diablo II, Warcraft 3 or StarCraft 2 design, less trading card 'hey look at me, I'm desperate' please. Then again, it's probably already too late to change it. Regarding the pricing: I'm also worried here. Trying to finish a major RTS game on 35m $, and then not recouping any cost on release... Let's just say there's a high likelihood of a rushed release and months of patching to catch up - all of which won't encourage players to spend on the micro-transactions that are necessary to keep the studio afloat until new story content is released. But perhaps I'm too pessimistic.

6:13 actually I think both wc3 and sc2 had multiple gray area characters. In sc2 Jim is a criminal, he steals and he doesn't hesitate to kill. Same with kerrgian she isn't pure good, all of HOTS is her revenge plan that leaves thousands of good soldiers to die. And do I even need to talk about wc3 it has multiple characters with great character like illidan who believes the end always justifies the means. grommash is fueled by bloodlust and tyrande is a racist etc....

great job grant 100k subs loved the videobtw sounds intresting

Great vid! Love the endi ..

I definitely am excited to see what this game will be like and what we hear sounds solid. BUT as someone who also is a Fallout fan the story of Obsidian with Outerworlds sounds similar: Outerworlds was supposed to be a shooter RPG that would have been the “right way” to make a new Fallout game made by devs who worked on the beloved New Vegas and 2D Fallout games. Bethesda, on the other hand, dropped the ball with the disastrous Fallout 76 release. Outerworlds seemed like it would have been a proper return to form with a new but great experience. Unfortunately though this wasn’t the case and for all that seemed to be going for Obsidian and Outerworlds, many consider it disappointing. So while I hope that this game can be a new RTS that captures that original Blizzard game feel in the face of actual Blizzard ignoring RTS, I also acknowledge that this can fail and we shouldn’t get our hopes up too much, because for all that’s going for it, it isn’t fail proof.

As good as it all sounds, I see free-to-play and red flags fly. Especially when you see "blizzard" and FtP in the same sentence right now :s they need to be very clear what their FtP model is going to be otherwise I think that many people will already be writing this game off.

this sounds like it has some real potential. I'm hooked.

i really hope they explore the units ranks system. in starcraft, when a unit kills a certain amount of enemies, they get promoted - but it doesn’t affect anything. it would be cool if units would start out slow, like newbies, and overtime get more skilled/faster/stronger. aaand, as the time progresses, they would get older, slower, weaker. that could potentially create interesting mechanics imo

2:42 Yeah, that's not good... Not terrible but it definitely isn't good. There should be something more akin to a walking car hitting bone or something, metal bending and shaking as the mech takes a hit, the machinegun should be louder and have more beef to it (it sounds more like something you'd hear in a Unity Asset Flip or old Bargain Bin game, I swear I've even heard it before). The fact that it's almost silent makes this feel... Unfinished. Say what you will about some of the more popular RTS games out there right now but most at least get sound design right. Like CoH2's Sturmtiger, CoH3's Nebelwerfers (Which sound Realistic in the BEST way), Command and Conquer 3's Railguns, the Obelisk of Light in general, the sounds of pretty much everything in Halo Wars from the Marines all the way to the Vultures and Scarab, Dawn of War and stuff like the Space Marine weapons and Imperial Guard gear (I mean just listen to the Basilisk firing). Sound Design is important to a good gameplay experience in my book. Edit: Okay, upon reflection I was far too easy on this. The sound design is AWFUL in this. Either the sounds DON'T fit or are FAR too quiet for the actions happening. I'm keeping the rest of my original comment up but my opinion has changed on this trailer in the span between first posting and now. I hope they get good people onto their sound design team, because otherwise I fear for the gameplay experience.

Let's hope this game's release doesn't turn into a crowbcat video

I remember casting a black hole from the MotherShip back in the day. Super OP ability. It lagged everyone and major abuses by the Pros. Where Pros actually stuffed all their units inside. There was a whole meta around Black hole abuse for 2 seasons.

I love the fact that the background music is the music from AOM :)

Yeah, can't say I'm too hopeful about this one. Particularly the setting. The art style looks like Diablo 3 vs. Overwatch and I'm just not there for it. Bring the saturation on the environment down like 20% and load up on the colorful trim on the units, and then we're talking. Or at the very least give us a graphical option that puts bright outlines around units. Because I'm getting the feeling this game is going to be very visually busy, possibly to the point of being hard to read. If you've seen Generals: Evolution, you'll see what I'm talking about. They've improved it a bit, but when there's a big fight in the middle of the map you can see jack through all the explosions and contrails.

This is the first i've heard of this game and now i'm pretty excited for it. I disagree with you a bit on the art style. The simple and colorful art style is easy on the eyes in my opinion. I don't like how similar the character designs seem to Blizzard

This is definitely the best review I’ve seen so far. The others always felt like an hour long video hyping on storm gate without actually talking about storm gate.

Looking forward to summoning a Daemon prince of the warp with my buddies

StarCraft 1 deathless run for 100k subs?

Seeing their Steam page for their new RTS game doesn't fill me with hope when I saw the tags: F2P, Esports, PVP" Honestly just feels like they've wasted a few yrs setting up yet another studio that's going to go completely ham on F2P micro transactions and PVP/Esports. Even when you made your "why the enxt RTS will fail", it's like devs decided to ignore what you stated and go against it instead out of spite or something. RTS really doesn't need a new game putting big focus on F2P/PVP/Esports. We need a brand new memorable game that isn't always online, has a price point and a campaign that's going to be remembered fondly for yrs like C&C/Starcraft/Warcraft's are remembered for. They can be "legit" all they want, but going F2P and making yet another esports focused RTS just screams failure and refusal to learn, imo. We know they have 4 pillars for this game, but in all honesty, PVP takes more resources over time from the other pillars due to balance changes, the esports focus, the promos to show off, focus on getting pro players in the big league seats/shows, all of which could instead be funnelled into more co-op and PVE content like a campaign expansion or sequel. I just don't ever want us to go back to the days where PVP takes priority in RTS games, because as someone that grew up with the genre as my core favourite 9still is to this day), I do not play PVP within the genre anymore, nor do I want to see it encompass new RTS games, because that then pushes me out of my favourite and already dwindling genre. As a side note, battle passes, skins and tid bit content being sold at a pop really puts me off wanting to play just about any game these days. I want to buy the game once and own the content that comes with it, not play a game and buy thousands of pounds worth of content, because they wanted to nickel/dime me. F2P really isn't the end all to be all model for everyone.

Congrats on 100K Grant

Really hope this vid reaches the devs and they can get a look into all you say to tick off some boxes, the community is there to be listened to, and this guys have shown that they can do great stuff, going on their own and not being part of Blizz hopefully makes some magic happen, been a real while since I've played any RTS and something like old-era Blizz would get my interest for sure.

Something is not right over here… I don’t want to be the one who judges the book by its cover, but I find the cinematic more important than promises they made. I cannot see a game take itself seriously when a human that being tossed with such speed and crushes with its spine into stones, standing up like it was nothing. One of the more important aspects of a game's story in my opinion is its atmosphere and specifically established bounds of the character’s abilities. If the main characters in the game can take hits like superheroes, you can’t be worried about them. Suddenly, a story about war and people dying becomes into a cool adventure of quirky characters. Older games presented such subjects way more serious and grim, thus making us respect the setting and believe in the story they prepared for us. This cinematic on the other hand, makes it seem like they want to make the game appeal to a wider spread of people, make the game family friendly. Combine this to the fact how little they talked about the races, lore and story makes me feel like they are not making a game because of a story they want to tell and the world to create, but instead just make a good rts with some campaign that teaches how to play. And without a good campaign, the identity of the game might be blurred and uninteresting. I hope I am wrong and they actually came up with very good lore and story.

I seen the trailer in summer fest... I mean it confusing as hell. I fear this game not going to be good as it should be. But I still pray that I'm death wrong.

I loved the music in the background

top tier analysis. thank you