The First Truly Social RTS
Millions of viewers around the world today watched the world premiere cinematic trailer for Frost Giant Studios’ eagerly-anticipated real-time strategy game, Stormgate. Southern California-based Frost Giant Studios was founded in 2020 by Tim Morten and Tim Campbell, veteran game development leaders who helped create some of the most acclaimed and best-selling PC games of all time-as well as some of the most-watched esports-including Blizzard Entertainment’s WarCraft III and StarCraft II.
“We are building Stormgate for the real-time strategy community–past, present, and future,” said Tim Morten, CEO and production director at Frost Giant Studios. “Our vision is to create a social experience that breaks down the barriers that have kept people away, to welcome back players who have been waiting for the next great RTS, and to prove that the RTS genre can thrive once again.”
Stormgate is coming to Windows PC via Steam and will be free-to-play. Players will be able to take part in a wide range of game modes and activities including:
- story-driven campaign missions, playable solo or with a friend
- fully-integrated in-client esports, including 1v1 ranked matches on the competitive ladder and team-based 3v3 with unique win conditions
- a cooperative 3vE (three players vs. AI) mode, featuring meta-progression and ways to customize army abilities to create powerful synergies
- expressing their creativity and design skills with the in-game Editor
- custom games created by other members of the community
- spectating matches and leveling up IRL with enhanced learning tools
Frost Giant Studios has dedicated its initial engineering efforts to Stormgate’s core mechanics and gameplay fundamentals—the building blocks of any great RTS. Its custom-developed SnowPlay simulation technology enables crisp, responsive gameplay with smart pathfinding.
Built in Unreal Engine 5, Stormgate will support high-resolution HD visuals in 4K and hundreds of unit models in epic, large-scale wars across a variety of maps and tilesets. The user interface is also being designed to make RTS more approachable by eliminating unnecessary inputs, automatically assigning units to control groups, and streamlining gameplay.
Stormgate’s powerful in-game editor arms creators with the same tools that Frost Giant is using to build the game, in a creator-friendly ecosystem where creativity and effort will be rewarded.
“The Stormgate universe’s combination of science fiction and fantasy, along with our focus on character-driven narratives, will provide years of storytelling opportunities for our players to enjoy,” said Tim Campbell, president and game director at Frost Giant Studios. “Our team is building a best-in-class real-time strategy game that will continue the RTS tradition of high-skill competitive play while innovating in areas such as user interface and co-op to make the genre more approachable than ever before.”
Stormgate takes place in an all-new post-apocalyptic game setting where science fiction and fantasy collide. The story begins hundreds of years in Earth’s future, following the near-extinction of humanity. The great calamity was caused by the Infernals—a playable alien race of demonic invaders hellbent on claiming this planet for their own. These otherworldly demons emerged from Stormgates—seemingly dormant portals that began pouring out demons during powerful solar storms. As the Infernals return to threaten humanity once again, humans must gather their courage—and climb into their 20-foot tall mechs—to save the world.
RTS fans who have been waiting for this announcement won’t have to wait long to learn even more. Stormgate will be featured on PC Gamer’s PC Gaming Show, which kicks off on Sunday, June 12, at 1:00 p.m. PT, hosted by Sean ‘Day[9]’ Plott of day9.tv.
Stormgate is currently in the pre-alpha development stage and is scheduled to commence beta testing in 2023. To learn more, visit playstormgate.com, where you can sign up to join the beta test and be among the first to play.