Iron Harvest is the Next Great Addition to RTS Genre
Iron Harvest, an upcoming RTS game to look out for. Especially if you liked Company of Heroes and the like, I believe. While we can find so many real-time strategy games set in WWII nowadays, Iron Harvest is coming up with different exciting element with it, which are mechs and steampunk-y technologies.
On the surface Iron Harvest looks like it is set in WWII era, but it's not. Iron Harvest take place in the World of 1920+, an alternate version of our world created by Polish artist Jakub Różalski, based on the Polish-Soviet war Battle of Warsaw. So if you want a strategy game set in fictional WWI/WWII-esque dieselpunk era, you might want to add Iron Harvest to your list.
An element that I loved so much in Company of Heroes that Iron Harvest have is the destructible environments. Almost everything in this game is destructible. Who doesn't like destructible environments? Combined with the ability to play stealth, it greatly lifts the tactical value of the gameplay. Enemies take cover behind a wall? Why go around it and get wiped out on your way there? Destroy the wall with your mech!
Iron Harvest offer great singleplayer campaigns with mature story told from the three playable factions perspectives with their unique characteristics and problems due to the Great War that recently ended, where the remaining giant mechs roaming the streets and used by farmers for everyday live. I can't imagine how noisy it is, though, judging by the size. Someone--persumably from one of the factions--is scheming a plan to set the world on fire and take control. That's where the next diesel-powered giant mechs warfare will occur.
Each faction has a hero, a unit with special abilities. And if that doesn't sounds cool enough, each of these heroes have a pet you can control in battle, which are a bear, a dire wolf, and a tiger. According to the description, there will be nine heroes and that was the first three.
Strong singleplayer campaigns, both co-op and competitive multiplayer, free DLCs later on, destructible environments and cover system, dieselpunk--a fresh theme in RTS genre, per-squad unit system that makes the battle larger in scale, and the wide range of tactics including stealth, is why I think this game will be the next great RTS. I just hope the developer, KING Art Games, deliver what promised excellently. It only took 36 hours for Iron Harvest's main goal to be fully funded on Kickstarter. However, the game is still has a long way to its initial release date on PC, PS4, and Xbox One, but the Alpha stage will be available in Summer 2018.
In April 2017, KING Art Games conducted a survey with over 15,000 gamers (visit to see the result charts), to see what gamers want from a modern RTS game. And the result? Many of the gamers that took part in it want something different from what the mainstream publishers demand. The good part is, as the developer stated boldly, they want their game to be loved by their fans. So they will likely listen to gamers more over publishers.
Sci-fi, modern, and medieval are also the most used theme/era in RTS genre, as well as fantasy, although I see fantasy is not as many as the first three. But another theme(s) that are more rare than those is steampunk and its cousin dieselpunk. Correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I know Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends and They Are Billions are (probably) the only steampunk-themed RTS available right now, with the latter being the newest, and Iron Harvest as the first dieselpunk-themed RTS. I'm happy that finally there will be an RTS, my favourite video game genre, made with my favourite literary genre.
I'll leave you with some of the cool digital paintings for the game by Jakub Różalski.
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Images credits: KING Art Games, and Jakub Różalski
Fantastic! (:
Reading all of this and especially looking at all the art this extremely reminds me of the boardgame Scythe – which is apparently really good (can't speak for it, though).
Art … 1920s … Mechs … This can't be a coincidence, can it?
Anyways Company of Heroes was pretty good back in the days (which is … 12 years ago?! … I'm old). It had some new and interesting things, which is always a boon.
Good eye! The arts, and the World of 1920+ were made by the same person who made Scythe.
I didn't realize it's been 12 years since the first Company of Heroes... dayum.