Retro-inspired RTS Tempest Rising debuts 20 minutes of multiplayer battling
Courtesy of the Ghostrunner studio
Last August, THQ Nordic and Slipgate Ironworks - the devs behind Ghostrunner and Graven - announced their new retro-inspired real-time strategy game Tempest Rising. It’s an alternate history story about three factions who duke it out over a rare mineral, the titular Tempest, and we had previously seen two of them in a campaign walkthrough. The third faction is only available in the game’s multiplayer modes, which the team have released footage of today. Catch the 20-minute 1v1 match below:
The multiplayer match above has lead game designer Brandon Casteel at war with his boss, Slipgate’s CEO Frederik Schreiber. Seems like a healthy, safe way to air workplace grievances, but the games tug-of-war strategy looks like a bunch of fun too. Schreiber plays as the Global Defence Forces while Casteel controls the Tempest Dynasty faction. Each one has a different economy, unique units, and requires players to approach the battlefield with different strategies in mind.
You start a multiplayer match with a small team who reacts to your commands with a deep “off we go” exclamation. They’re mainly useful for scouting the map and collecting resource crates, and while friendly units are away, you can invest energy into base-building and harvesting Tempest through the sticky red vines on the map. Leaving the Tempest vines alone, though, will cause them to become more mature and valuable. The entire multiplayer match is full of these strenuous tactical decisions with pros and cons on either side, which should keep longer matches feeling fresh.
From Tempest Rising’s announcement, its Command & Conquer inspirations were as clear as the heavy in-game tire tracks. EA have been relatively nonchalant about a new proper C&C, so fans are probably pleased they’re getting a new IP that’s riffing on gameplay they love.
We’ll need to wait a while longer before we build, expand, and fight our way through Tempest Rising. It’s currently targeting a 2023 release, and you can check out more details over on Steam.
For now, C&C fans should check out Jeremy Peel's interview with the series' co-creator as they dig into how the Gulf War and Apple's drag-select gave us the iconic RTS games.
