Frost Giant Studios has finally lifted the lid on its Stormgate campaign rework as the free-to-play RTS from former Starcraft, Warcraft, and Diablo developers attempts to turn around a rocky launch response. The single-player story mode was one of the most heavily criticized aspects of the strategy game’s early-access release, with users bemoaning its placeholder presentation and underwhelming objectives, but it’s now been dramatically overhauled and given a new lease on life.
We’re experiencing a real-time strategy revival right now – Tempest Rising feels like a new breed of Command and Conquer, while Battle Aces is adopting Starcraft-style concepts into a more fast-paced, short-round format. Stormgate is a more traditional approach that aligns more closely to Blizzard’s best RTS games, and it gets a lot of the feel right. Unfortunately, its launch was met with a mixed response as players determined that its graphics and campaign felt too undercooked, even as an early-access release.
Since then, however, Frost Giant has been hard at work tackling the areas people have been most eager to see fixed. Multiple graphical upgrades have rolled out, while its most recent patch makes some major enhancements including better unit pathing and full hotkey and control group customization. Next to arrive, however, is the new-look campaign, which Frost Giant says has been totally transformed based on “your feedback and our vision.”
Immediately, the video demonstration certainly feels like a big step up from the campaign we were presented at launch – it’s prettier, more cinematic, and much closer to a complete package, although Frost Giant is quick to state that it’s still very much a work in progress and that the studio is eager to get more feedback as it continues to expand and improve what’s now there.
Among the missions we get glimpses of here, there are scouting patrols attempting to infiltrate enemy security stations and rescue prisoners. One sequence sees protagonist Amara working to download a data core while under assault, while another has you escorting a large APC as part of a resistance convoy as you move between vaults and attempt to repair sentry posts to bolster the city’s defenses along the way.
Frost Giant confirms that the updated campaign will be made available with Stormgate 0.4.0, the game’s next major update. “The vibe and atmosphere is exactly what I imagined back in the first trailer reveal,” one commenter remarks, while another says, “As someone who supported the Kickstarter and played the campaign as soon as it was available, I will say this version looks 1,000 times better than the old version.”
Of course, there’s still a long road until full release. It certainly feels like Stormgate is aiming to come together much more significantly now, however; what was perhaps a too-early initial public launch has slowly grown into something that Starcraft enjoyers like myself can look forward to.
While we wait on more news there, take a look through more of the best strategy games you should be playing in 2025, or perhaps the best multiplayer games if you’re feeling that competitive itch.
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