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Gameplay and trailer. For scratching that Dawn of War itch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38B0XxiQ1g4&t=1s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2y4GzIgMmRQ

There is a 3 mission demo out now, for those interested.

 nels1031 wrote:
There is a 3 mission demo out now, for those interested.

The demo exists as part of Steam Nextfest, so it may go away monday.
Not certain on that, but that happens sometimes with Nextfest demos.

Been playing it and enjoying it. Will definitely need more factions adding, but the actual gameplay seems solid as does the animations. The map editor is going to be wonderful to use, already have a few ideas in mind for that.

Voss wrote:

 nels1031 wrote:
There is a 3 mission demo out now, for those interested.

The demo exists as part of Steam Nextfest, so it may go away monday.
Not certain on that, but that happens sometimes with Nextfest demos.

And its gone!

I will say, pretty excited for it, though unit movement was a bit slower than I'd like and UI needs bigger unit cards.

And to the surprise of no one, Tzeentch is faction number 4.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edRhTtuZF-E

I do have to say, i love the animations they've given them.

I hate this fad currently of a few big demo blitzs for a few days and then pulling all the demos - very annoying.



That said I did get to try this demo and the game felt - hobbled.

I think the core issue is that they've made an RTS Game for consoles. The interface, the speed of units, the way units lock into combat. Everything feels like its been built around the console setup.
Now I'm going to wager console players might well enjoy it. They've made a lot of smart choices to cope with the fact that console controllers are slower than mouse and keyboard for an RTS style game.


The problem is PC is the home of RTS and on PC it felt lacking.

1) Units move way too slowly which makes the game feel sluggish. It's not that everything has to move at hyper speed, but just the pace of the game felt like there was a LOT of waiting around going on.

2) The way units lock into close combat has an issue in that it means once you are in close combat your options are very heavily curtailed. You can't retarget; you can use a few abilities, though many are the off-on kind. You basically watch the health bars move and when yours get too low you hit retreat to have your unit basically immortal run back to a building or away.

Whilst you have this in games like Company of Heroe's the big difference is that in CoH you have a lot of movement options during the fight. You can move to cover or terrain; you can change facings of tanks; you can give new target orders etc... Running away is the last part of it all and even then you can try manually retreating and hope your opponent pulls out.

3) Game seemed to slow down a lot when zooming in. Granted this means the engine remained stable whilst playing, but the slowdown compared to topdown view was quite dramatic. Though this is one that I think can be optimised and improved on before release.

4) Linear maps. This is a plague that has been spreading through RTS for a while and it seriously harms it. Super linear map designs make for very boring RTS games. Dawn of War 2 suffered form it a lot (esp Retribution) and the style, esp in campaigns, makes them feel very dull to play. There's no thinking or choice going on you simply run from A to B along the map.
Which when you then couple with the slower movement speeds, makes for even more waiting around for something to happen.



Overall it just feels like going for console has crippled itin some way. It can't quite shine as a PC RTS because its got the console elements; and on consoles RTS aren't a big thing so its not really what should be the prime target market.
It's a shame because visually its very pretty and it brings some life to the mortal Realms environments which is something that has sorely been missing for a long while from GW compared to Old World. The customising options they've built into it and the map editor and photo system are all really neat too. There's so much that's gone into this I hope I'm proved wrong with its reception, but right now it just feels like a LOT of passion and skill in building something that is stuck between console and pc and can't excel because of it

The gameplay for this almost looks like Halo Wars or something like that. Which played pretty well on console. I didn't play the demo for this, but I hope it turns out good. Might help me appreciate AoS a bit more as a setting.

Eary Access is up, as of yesterday.

It let me start from the 3rd mission, which was the cap for thedemo a few weeks back.

I was considering picking this up, would be on the PS5.
Still not sure, anyone got on PS5 think it’s good there?

PC is a no go for me.

It seems fine on mine, i was rather enjoying being able to play something like this away from the PC.

I think the price just off for me, so many good games to play.
But it’s on my wish list for now. See how it goes.

But I was thinking it’s a shame they didn’t do something like sacrifice. Seems that style of RTS would have worked well for it.

I give this game a 7/10.

Got some cool things, and looks/sounds great, but its not really putting its hooks in somehow, and I'm a lifelong RTS fan, as well as someone who enjoys AoS. Some quality of life improvements would be welcome.

It does seem to be one of those games where it's middle of the road. Basically get it when it's on a steam sale but not full retail price.