It's not worth your time currently and most likely never will be.

I noticed Stormgate, when it was being hyped up to be the next Starcraft / Warcraft RTS. I think that the hype was mostly wishful thinking from RTS players who are disappointed with Blizzard's neglect of SC2 and the failure of making a good game out of Warcraft III: Reforged (while nuking the original Warcraft III on battlenet). So understandably people are hoping for a spiritual successor.

Stormgate isn't it. The campaign is so bad it drags the entire game down with it and makes me want to avoid it completely. I played the first 3 missions free and watched the rest on youtube. Glad I didn't pay. It's not "rough around the edges", it's an unsalvageable trainwreck. It's bland cringe with an unlikable main character, trash writing, world building and story, poor voice acting, bad mission design and an awful artstyle. There is simply no way that it can get close to being the next good RTS, unless they redo all of that. It's a shame because the actual 1v1 mode is not bad, but not enough on its own. From what I've seen so far, I don't believe Frost Giant has the energy, talent and money they would need to make it good. The Quickmacro feature is nice, but such a small improvement, it's basically irrelevant.

One thing I found especially annoying and haven't seen mentioned anywhere yet is that the game never explains to you that Therium is a resource that replenishes over time and 5 workers are the ideal amount on a patch, so that it never depletes. Why is that not mentioned or indicated anywhere? It's such a trap for new players who try to figure the game out themselves, rather than look up guides online because you can send an infinite amount of workers to quickly deplete the Therium and ruin your economy. This little piece of knowledge is the difference between playing a good game and getting stomped by someone who knows this in 1v1. It's so annoying to have the game pretend to be "noob-friendly" with it's intuitive Quickmacro feature and then stab you in the back with the hidden detail on how Therium works. The only way I got to know this is by clicking the "learn to play" button in the main menu and watching an intro Youtube video. The game should somehow teach you this in the first mission and the UI should indicate something.

Frost Giant spent their $40 million budget on creating a worse game than what we had over 10 years ago. The CEO/founders probably made more money than expected, so their goals are met. The game feels like it's a calculated attempt to make the bare minimum viable product to not get sued, by implementing enough microtransactions to pay back investors. You can tell by the lack of detail that no one in charge really cares about it and it will probably never be anything great. Basically Stormgate feels like a lame attempt to milk the starving RTS crowd.

The only faint shimmer of hope for Stormgate is that I'm completely wrong about everything and Frost Giant pulls a 360.
But that's some serious Copium and looks impossible to me.

---

To end this review on something more positive, I will leave some other recommendations for RTS players.
I'm currently playing Iron Harvest which is on sale now for $5 and a good game for the price.

Some upcoming RTS games that look promising:
- Tempest Rising
- Immortal: Gates of Pyre
- Battle Aces

The classics:
- Warcraft III (original, not reforged - you can still play it in multiplayer via WC3Connect or GameRanger)
- Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance
- Command & Conquer Remastered (surprisingly not a bad remake)

As a final note: Starcraft II is still the best RTS overall, even after more than a decade since release. Sadly it won't be developed further. I agree with other reviews that all Stormgate really does is make me want to play more SC2 (so I can forget that Stormgate exists). I think it's fair to be savage with Stormgate for the horrendous microtransactions that the game already has, despite being a tasteless nothingburger.

It's not worth your time currently and most likely never will be. I noticed Stormgate, when it was being hyped up to be the next Starcraft / Warcraft RTS. I think that the hype was mostly wishful thinking from RTS players who are disappointed with Blizzard's neglect of SC2 and the failure of making a good game out of Warcraft III: Reforged (while nuking the original Warcraft III on battlenet). So understandably people are hoping for a spiritual successor. Stormgate isn't it. The campaign is so bad it drags the entire game down with it and makes me want to avoid it completely. I played the first 3 missions free and watched the rest on youtube. Glad I didn't pay. It's not "rough around the edges", it's an unsalvageable trainwreck. It's bland cringe with an unlikable main character, trash writing, world building and story, poor voice acting, bad mission design and an awful artstyle. There is simply no way that it can get close to being the next good RTS, unless they redo all of that. It's a shame because the actual 1v1 mode is not bad, but not enough on its own. From what I've seen so far, I don't believe Frost Giant has the energy, talent and money they would need to make it good. The Quickmacro feature is nice, but such a small improvement, it's basically irrelevant. One thing I found especially annoying and haven't seen mentioned anywhere yet is that the game never explains to you that Therium is a resource that replenishes over time and 5 workers are the ideal amount on a patch, so that it never depletes. Why is that not mentioned or indicated anywhere? It's such a trap for new players who try to figure the game out themselves, rather than look up guides online because you can send an infinite amount of workers to quickly deplete the Therium and ruin your economy. This little piece of knowledge is the difference between playing a good game and getting stomped by someone who knows this in 1v1. It's so annoying to have the game pretend to be "noob-friendly" with it's intuitive Quickmacro feature and then stab you in the back with the hidden detail on how Therium works. The only way I got to know this is by clicking the "learn to play" button in the main menu and watching an intro Youtube video. The game should somehow teach you this in the first mission and the UI should indicate something. Frost Giant spent their $40 million budget on creating a worse game than what we had over 10 years ago. The CEO/founders probably made more money than expected, so their goals are met. The game feels like it's a calculated attempt to make the bare minimum viable product to not get sued, by implementing enough microtransactions to pay back investors. You can tell by the lack of detail that no one in charge really cares about it and it will probably never be anything great. Basically Stormgate feels like a lame attempt to milk the starving RTS crowd. The only faint shimmer of hope for Stormgate is that I'm completely wrong about everything and Frost Giant pulls a 360. But that's some serious Copium and looks impossible to me. --- To end this review on something more positive, I will leave some other recommendations for RTS players. I'm currently playing Iron Harvest which is on sale now for $5 and a good game for the price. Some upcoming RTS games that look promising: - Tempest Rising - Immortal: Gates of Pyre - Battle Aces The classics: - Warcraft III (original, not reforged - you can still play it in multiplayer via WC3Connect or GameRanger) - Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance - Command & Conquer Remastered (surprisingly not a bad remake) As a final note: Starcraft II is still the best RTS overall, even after more than a decade since release. Sadly it won't be developed further. I agree with other reviews that all Stormgate really does is make me want to play more SC2 (so I can forget that Stormgate exists). I think it's fair to be savage with Stormgate for the horrendous microtransactions that the game already has, despite being a tasteless nothingburger.