A Nasty Hodgepodge from Blizzard Ex-pats: Stormgate Strategy Review [Early Access]

The first mission is a poor rip-off of the Alliance campaign prologue from Warcraft 3. Amanda, a hybrid of Overwatch’s Tracer and Warcraft 3’s Maiev, has arrived in response to a call for help. A gang of techno-cultists, like the orcs in the Alliance mission, are attacking a human town. They’re burning down houses and taking civilians captive, and only our heroine can stop them. 

As you progress, the game introduces you to combat mechanics, artifacts, and consumables. You can also help a woman find a stolen chicken. At a certain point, an outdated mix of Reinhardt from Overwatch and Grom Zadira from Warcraft 3 comes to the rescue. If you play on a high difficulty level, you need to help Grandpa right away – otherwise the cultists will quickly finish him off. Such frailty is depressing, considering that Grandpa is a tank. 

A sniper named Riker joins the game as a third character. The guy is a straight white male, and the game doesn’t like him. The strong and independent Amara tries her best to put him in his place. It’s weird, but out of all the characters, Amara is the one who can pick up objects, which quickly fills up her inventory. 

The Alliance mission in Warcraft 3, from which this segment of the game is copied, does the same thing, but much better:

• The very first dialogue allows you to form an opinion about the heroes and their relationships. The heroes of Stormgate are not revealed throughout the campaign;
• The additional mission cleverly attracts the player’s attention rather than being hidden behind trees;
• The game clearly shows how items work, and that consumables can be used without fear – they are given out in abundance. In Stormgate, the description of items poorly conveys their functions.

This is a prime example of how to love all polymers from the start. 

But is it really that much?

The following missions introduce the strategic component of the game. Workers extract resources from large stones and flying stones. They are able to build and repair buildings, and repair damaged equipment. If you build through a special tab, then the workers will automatically break away from mining, and automatically return upon completion. What a convenient idea!

The armies of people can boast that they work:

• Dogs from Command and Conquer can sniff out enemies, but they cannot stun them with their bark or instantly destroy infantry;
• Boring melee and ranged fighters;
• Engineers from Command and Conquer, who look like Reaper from Overwatch;
• Boring robots and transport;
• Medics who quickly treat infantry;
• A tank that is worse than the tank from Starcraft in every way, and the Soviet rocket launcher from Red Alert 3.

As in Command and Conquer, troops can be promoted. Destroying opponents rewards fighters with new ranks, which are accompanied by pleasant bonuses to characteristics.

The “unique” building of people is the bunker. Like the Alliance buggy from Red Alert 3 – it has additional properties and characteristics – depending on the soldier placed there. If you place a medic in the bunker, he will heal buildings and equipment.

The main objective of the campaign is to find the infernal counterfeit Frostmourne from the Storgmate universe. Amara follows in the footsteps of Arthas from Warcraft 3 – making sacrifices to gain power “that her father never dreamed of.” And she will be helped in this by a cursed blade that perverts the soul and body. The demon Malok – a recolored Shadow Fiend (a hero from DOTA 2) tries to stop the heroine.

The game will not allow you to fully “enjoy” the campaign. You will have to pay for access to the second half. And everything would be fine if the developers’ greed ended there. Most of the online heroes (and, accordingly, the races associated with them) and pets are hidden behind the paywall. 

Blizzard uses a similar tactic. The difference is that the old Blizzard’s craftsmen created unique and elaborate worlds. Later, the new employees sold these worlds piece by piece. The world of Stormgate is not unique or elaborate, and there is no desire to reward the developers for their work. 

Technically, it works. In fact…

The game is made on Unreal Engine 5 and the developers, it seems, due to their inability to work with the engine, got the bare minimum out of it: 

• The graphics are not pleasing to the eye, and the characters are made in an ugly plasticine-cartoon style;
• It is difficult to understand the purpose of the buildings from their appearance;
• The units don’t stand out well against the background or during battles. Not to mention that their appearance is frankly bland;
• The icons for items and artifacts don’t say much and are inconveniently placed.

You can’t blame the engine itself, since it’s also used to make Tempest Rising – a strategy game with Command and Conquer sauce, which already looks great!  

The sounds are also not pleasing. In Warcraft 3 and Starcraft 2, this element is so good that an experienced player can assess what is happening by the sounds of attacks and the dying cries of units. Stormgate cannot boast of such quality. As for the music… I can’t remember if there was any at all! 

Diagnosis

After seeing all this, you start to worry about the developers. Is it possible that the imposed perfectionism and stagnation within the framework of time-tested ideas have poisoned their creativity? Everything that happens on the screen is not a nostalgic nod to the fans, but a mindless mishmash of poorly combined elements. 

That’s not to say the game is bad. It works pretty well. And it even has some interesting mechanics. But the shameless reliance on nostalgia is downright off-putting, and the design and most of the mechanics are inferior to what they’re trying to clone. 

At the moment it’s a boring and crude piece of work, and it’s impossible to say that the situation will change in the full version…