Рубрика: Gamezone

Perusing the Baldur’s Gate 3 subreddit for pro gamer tips this morning (as one does), I was struck by something: It was all photo mode shitposts. The subreddit has gazed upon all Patch 8 has to offer, and summarily declared: “This is r/BaldursGate3, bitch. We clown in this mf. Better take your sensitive ass back to r/BG3builds.”

You’re laughing? Prime OP Shadow Blade combos are getting drowned out by memes, and you’re laughing?

Well, despite the wall-to-wall goofs about a game I take very seriously, I felt a smile on my face while my heart grew three sizes looking at all these posts⁠—I should probably see a cardiologist. This “Reddit” place has some fun jokes sometimes. Here are a few I really dug:

Did you know that you can leave Shadowheart behind on the Nautiloid, but she shows up at your camp later anyway, letting you recruit her still? Anyway, both she and Shakira look like they’re dancing inside someone’s colon in these respective shots. “Mind Flayer chic.”

Making memes with photo mode is awesome from r/BaldursGate3

“I don’t like sand. It’s coarse, rough, and irritating. And it gets everywhere. Not like here. Here, everything is soft and smooth.”

I think I’ve actually finished more Baldur’s Gate 3 runs than I’ve stalled out on at this point, for a given value of “finish”—some of those Honour mode characters belong to the ages now.

This is the second tangential reference to the work of American actor-comedian Kevin Hart in today’s article, which, with Borderlands Movie outliers discounted, is about 200% more than PC Gamer’s average annual rate of Kevin Hart mentions. I have no strong feelings either way regarding this fact.

This is also the second instance of the photo mode stylings of X, “The Everything App” user @ishadowheart in today’s article, shout out to them.

Recreated the most iconic butt shot in the history of gaming from r/BaldursGate3

Here we can(‘t because of Reddit spoiler tags) see how user PackagesCoreOverride recreated the iconic shot from Mass Effect 2 where Commander Shepard stands all sassy with his arms folded while the foreground is dominated by the derriere of squadmate Miranda Lawson. I’ve always found this image to be a bit of a lodestar for the Xbox 360 era.

The Lady of Loss from r/BaldursGate3

God damn it.

Now that we’ve gotten all that silliness out of our system, it’s time to get serious and think about builds. Hexblade builds. Booming Blade builds. Swashbuckler builds. It’s a whole new world of buildcrafting possibilities. Stop trying to turn Gale into “Bad Luck Gale” or something. We have Golden Dice to earn and lives to ruin.

Tempest Rising is a base-building RTS about humanity’s desperate fight to survive after someone pushed the big red button and started a nuclear war. Now it looks like another button that shouldn’t have been pushed has been pushed: Tempest Rising released on Steam yesterday, which seems to have happened a full week before it was supposed to.

An advanced access period was planned to start yesterday, but it was meant to be reserved for those willing to drop some extra cash on the Deluxe Edition pre-order.

Players have been taking to the Steam community forums and scratching their heads, because both editions are available for immediate purchase, not pre-purchase, and the store page states the game fully released on April 17.

If it was, in fact, an accident and not a burst of capricious whimsy, this does put developer Slipgate Ironworks in a bit of a pickle. Anyone who pre-ordered the special edition specifically for advanced access has lost the bragging rights and theoretical extra hours of gameplay they paid for, but it would counteract the momentum of this spur-of-the-moment release to revoke access to standard edition players. After all, they seem to be liking the game, which currently sits at a Very Positive user rating on Steam.

We liked it a lot, too, awarding Tempest Rising an 85% in our review.

The official launch announcement on the game’s Steam page is still under the illusion that Deluxe Edition players are the only ones with access, and I couldn’t find a response to the issue on Slipgate’s socials. We’ve reached out to the studio for comment and this story will be updated should they reply.

Whatever solution is agreed upon, whether it’s to reward Deluxe Edition buyers with an extra goodie or just sit back and not sweat it, I hope it doesn’t involve cutting players off from the game after they’ve installed and gotten into it. The last thing this genre needs is a game turning away players.

If you want to jump in while the going is good, Tempest Rising is available on Steam.

Rebellion’s open world shooter Atomfall released in March among some stiff competition, landing in the same month as Hazelight’s cooperative hit Split Fiction and a week after the massively popular Assassin’s Creed Shadows. Yet according to CEO Jason Kingsley, this hasn’t stopped Atomfall from becoming a success in its own right. Indeed, Atomfall has done so well for Rebellion that Kingsley is considering making it into a series.

Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, Kingsley was asked whether he thought he and Rebellion’s CTO Chris Kingsley had got the scale of its projects, including Atomfall, just right. “I don’t think we got it just right,” he responded. “I think that one of the things Chris and I want to do is repeat success. So we want to do more Sniper Elite, we want to do more Zombie Army, we want to do more Strange Brigade.”

To this, Kingsley added: “Now it looks like we want to do more Atomfall.”

Kingsley didn’t reveal specific sales figures for Atomfall, though we do know that it reached two million players as of mid-April. But he did say that it was a bigger success than Rebellion expected. “We’ve done a lot better than our mid-range estimates, actually,” he explained. “It’s nice when marketing comes back to you and says ‘yep, we underestimated our high-level success.”

According to Kingsley, a crucial part of Atomfall’s success was featuring it on Microsoft’s Game Pass service. This is partly due to increasing discoverability, and having Microsoft’s assistance. “They brought their skills and their scale to bear on our small project, and it’s done really, really well for them, so they got a good deal, we got a good deal out of it as well.”

However, it’s also because releasing on Game Pass provides some guarantee of a financial return. “Without going into details, they guarantee you a certain level of income, regardless of what it will sell for,” Kingsley added.

Yet while Atomfall performed above expectations for Rebellion, making a sequel remains a question of pragmatism rather than will. “Can we find the resources to do it? I don’t know. The idea has always been to have two thirds sequels and one third new IP pushing the boundaries.”

But pushing the boundaries is expensive, and Kingsley says any attempt to do so must fit with Rebellion’s approach to managing budgets and its position as a developer of midsize games. “We don’t deliberately fit into this mid range, but that’s what we can do, and what we can do successfully. We literally can’t afford to spend 200 million on making a game. We just don’t have 200 million.”

I’m pleased that Atomfall has been a success for Rebellion, but I will also admit to being slightly surprised. I played through the whole game last month and, although I had a reasonable time with it, my feelings largely chimed with Fraser’s review.

“Atomfall has needed to contend with the spectre of Fallout since it was first unveiled, but the similarities are only surface deep,” he wrote back in March. “That shallowness is probably Atomfall’s defining feature: it’s chock full of systems and obvious inspirations, but it rarely digs into them and struggles to find anything to set itself apart.”

Path of Exile 2’s recent 0.2.0 update did not go down well with players. The update unleashed nerf-a-geddon unto numerous classes and abilities, while also making monsters tougher by fattening their health bars. The purported aim of the update was to make the later game more challenging. But the effect, at least according to players, was that it made the game feel way too slow, denying them that sense of empowerment and rapid progression that is at the heart of ARPGs.

Developer Grinding Gear Games addressed these concerns in a blog post on its website, defending some of the decisions while acknowledging the unintended consequences of others. Since then, it has issued several further updates. The latest, 0.2.0f, arrived two days ago, and respecced ascendency classes while also making changes to charms, the crafting system, and the endgame.

Now, GGG has revealed what’s in store for the next update to Path of Exile 2. “With Patch 0.2.0f deployed, we’re already planning the next wave of improvements we want to be making,” writes the developer in a Steam post. “The main focus of 0.2.0g will be to address two highly sought after improvements as well as a flurry of other minor to moderate changes.”

The first of these improvements revolves around loot drops. Some players have experienced runs of bad luck in Path of Exile 2, receiving underwhelming new gear items from defeated bosses. Hence, the next update will be “raising the floor of the quality of their drops.”

Presumably, this means there will be a minimum baseline regarding what loot you can expect from a boss, given this update coincides with another change to “increase the quality of drops from bosses overall”. On top of that, players can also expect better quality loot from monsters possessed by azmerian wisps.

The second major improvement targets corrupted nexuses—special locations in the endgame that contain ‘corrupted’ monsters and unique bosses. Grinding Gear explains that these “can be difficult and time consuming to find and often players progress in waystone tiers much faster than they can complete the nexuses.” Consequently, update 0.2.0g make corrupted nexuses easier to find, while also lowering the number of completed nexuses required for players to attain all their atlas passive points.

Grinding Gear Games says these are “just some of the changes we’ll be working towards deploying over the next couple of weeks”. The developer can’t give precise date for when the update will arrive, due to the Easter weekend and an additional public holiday in New Zealand (where the studio is based). But it says that the plan is to get the update ready “as soon as we can”.

We first heard that Ubisoft’s Star Wars Outlaws would be getting a pirate-themed expansion as the second story pack in the season pass, following the Lando-themed Wild Card DLC. Now, at Star Wars Celebration Japan, a release date has been announced, along with the trailer above.

A Pirate’s Fortune will see Kay Vess working with the pirate Hondo Ohnaka, who you may know from The Clone Wars or the Smuggler’s Run ride in Disneyland Galaxy’s Edge or multiple other appearances across the Star Wars canon over the years. The DLC has the two of you team up in search of the Great Khepi Treasure somewhere in the Khepi system. Apparently it’s in a tomb and there will doubtless be traps and a shocking betrayal at the finale.

Standing in opposition are Hondo’s former employees, the Rokana Raiders led by Stinger Tash. On your side are the Miyuki Trade League, who want you to smuggle their goods in return for upgrades you can apply to your freighter, the Trailblazer.

When A Pirate’s Fortune comes out, all Star Wars: Outlaws players will receive a batch of cosmetics based on Star Wars: Skeleton Crew—the show starring Jude Law on Disney+ that I hear is actually quite decent—including an outfit for your pet Nix, a trophy for the speeder, and a trinket for both the speeder and Trailblazer. It’ll all appear as a delivery crate once the update patch is downloaded on May 15.

Star Wars Celebration Japan has just begun, and during a panel about the upcoming Mandalorian movie spin-off, director Shawn Levy and actor Ryan Gosling popped up to announce a new Star Wars movie coming in 2027.

“One of several theatrical projects still in development from Lucasfilm,” says starwars.com, “including films by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, James Mangold, Taika Waititi and a new trilogy by Simon Kinberg, Levy’s film — Star Wars: Starfighter — will star Gosling and go into production starting this fall.”

Apparently it’s going to explore a previously unseen era in the Star Wars timeline, roughly five years after Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, and Gosling will play a new character rather than someone from the existing canon.

It’s a couple of years off, with The Mandalorian & Grogu due to arrive in cinemas first on May 22, 2026. Star Wars: Starfighter will follow a year later, on May 28, 2027, and presumably have nothing to do with the 2001 Phantom Menace tie-in videogame of the same name, which we once praised for the line, “now let’s see how you deal with my favourite training canyon.” Though if Ryan Gosling gets to say that it would make the internet very happy.

Quick story about the most nightmarish death I’ve ever experienced in a videogame: I was playing Barotrauma, the submarine survival simulator where you explore oceans on alien worlds. I’d left the sub and was swimming around in the inky black waters to investigate some sunken ruins, when I noticed I was out of air. Frantically, I swapped my empty oxygen tank with a full one.

At least I meant to do that. What I actually slotted into my oxygen supply was a fuel tank for my welding torch.

Just imagine being submerged in the dark, freezing cold waters of a pitch-black ocean on an alien planet, and taking a big panicky lungful of what you expect will be air but is actually welding fuel. Horrible. Horrible. But pretty funny, too, and a teaching moment. I never mixed up my tanks again.

That’s my sales pitch for trying Barotrauma, the always spooky but frequently hilarious 2D survival game that’s currently hosting a free weekend on Steam. Dive in and play from now until Monday, completely for free.

There’s a bonus, too: if you like it (I suspect you will) it’s on sale for 50% off until April 26.

It’s great timing because Barotrauma recently introduced a bunch of new stuff in its Calm Before the Storm update, like a new mission spanning three undersea ruins and an outpost that’s perfect for PvP deathmatch, making the grim chaos of the game “even darker, more disturbed, and violent,” according to developer FakeFish.

It’s already pretty darn disturbed, if you ask me. Along with inhaling welding fuel, I was also beaten up and imprisoned in the sub’s airlock by a co-op teammate, though to be fair, I had put on a clown mask and tried injecting him with a bunch of random syringes from the med bay. (Barotrauma isn’t strictly co-op, there’s a “traitor” mode where you can sabotage your team, something I wasn’t very good at.)

I was also eaten by an enormous sea monster while swimming, mistook a plasma cutter for a welding torch while trying to repair holes in the hull (naturally, the cutter just made the holes bigger), got beaten to death by an alien hermit crab, and got cut in half by a rapidly closing submarine door. All horrible ways to go, but all pretty funny, too.

In related news, FakeFish announced its next co-op survival game just last week, though this one swaps out the submarine for a train and 2D sidescrolling for FPS action. It’s called Frostrail—but it won’t be along until sometime next year, so checking out Barotrauma for the free weekend is your best bet for some chilling but silly co-op fun.

Don’t worry—I’m not going to spoil anything about the Severance season 2 finale. Why? Well, because I simply haven’t seen it. My limited understanding of the show has been acquired by social media osmosis, so I can only assume it’s a workplace drama with vaguely uncomfortable vibes but also lots of kissing.

Jokes aside, Severance is definitely on my never-ending to-watch list—even more so now, thanks to this mysterious and important keyboard from Atomic Keyboards (via PCWorld). Dubbed the MDR Dasher Keyboard, neither a final price nor a firm release date has been confirmed, but you can sign up to get updates on its limited release here.

The keyboard’s name comes from Data General’s ‘Dasher’ Terminals for a retro computing hit straight from the ’70s. These machines are used as salvaged props in the Macrodata Refinement (MDR) department of the fictitious Lumon Industries, central to Severance’s confined universe. And before you ask, yes, Atomic Keyboards’ take also omits the Escape, Control, and Options keys just like the show.

It’s certainly a unique 73-key layout, standing out against even the original Dasher keyboards with the inclusion of a trackball immersed in the right-hand side of the hardware. Also, unlike the ancient hardware serving as a source of inspiration, Atomic Keyboard’s 70% boards feature a USB-C connection plus compatibility with Windows, Mac, and Linux machines.

Now, you know me, I love attention-grabbing hardware, especially if it’s a keyboard with a gimmick. A blue board that comes with a trackball mouse definitely does it for me—and would probably pair quite nicely with my army of Miku Hatsune figurines. However, with a very tentative guide price of about $400, I think I’d rather spend that kind of money fortifying the ranks of my anime figures.

Still, maybe that’s just me. If you can’t wait to appreciate every key of the MDR Dasher Keyboard equally and are looking for ways to kill time before it sees the light of day, you can always tool around with this Macrodata Refinement Simulator. I don’t know what’s happening either, but it is oddly calming to corral those shivering numbers—wait, what was just copied to my clipboard…?

There’s a lot to say about AI’s integration into journalism—and if you’re only asking me, almost all of it would be extremely negative. Well, an engaged reader wouldn’t just take my word for it, instead seeking to read widely on the subject to better inform their own opinion. My one request, if I may be so bold, is that your wider reading doesn’t begin and end with asking an AI chatbot how it ‘feels’ about the subject.

In recent weeks, the LA Times has begun book-ending its opinion pieces with AI-generated ‘Insights’ (via AP News). Clicking on this dropdown tab offers information such as the supposed political alignment of the piece you’ve just read, a bullet point summary of the piece itself, as well as points offering “different views on the topic.” It’s a ‘both sides’ approach by way of Perplexity-powered AI.

Insights was first implemented on March 3, so it remains tricky to get a solid sense of the quality of this still very recent addition. Still, it’s notable that some of its features, such as identifying the supposed political alignment of a piece, has so far only been applied to opinion pieces and not news.

At the very least, I appreciate the AI-generated bullet points offer some linked-out citations so you can dig deeper into its claims yourself. Mind you, that’s a very journalist thing to say; how many people will investigate the quality of the included citations beyond noting the AI presents them at all? There’s also arguably more to this story than mere AI bandwagon-hopping.

First, a brief recap: AP News notes the LA Times was bought back in 2018 by Patrick Soon-Shiong, a transplant surgeon, medical researcher, and investor who has also served as the publication’s executive chairman for the last seven years. Interviewed by Fox News last year, Soon-Shiong said, “We’ve conflated news and opinion,” later adding that the LA Times wants “voices from all sides,” before going on to say, “If you just have the one side, it’s just going to be an echo chamber.”

As such, opinion pieces are very clearly demarcated from news, often labelled as ‘editorial’ or ‘Voices’. Beyond that, the publication also chose not to endorse a specific presidential candidate last year—about two weeks prior to election day—despite an editorial in favour of Kamala Harris being allegedly already prepared. The Los Angeles Times’s editorial editor, among other members of the editorial board, resigned in response to this decision. To put it another way, since at least last year, there appears to have been a greater push from upon high to steer the publication more centrally in the name of impartiality.

Right so, with that context in mind, let’s take a peek at the LA Times’ AI-generated ‘Insights’ in action. In this opinion piece touching upon recent ICE detainments and deportations, Matt K. Lewis claims, “The point was never really about deporting violent criminals. The point was a warning to anyone who wants to come to America: Don’t come here. Or, if you’re already here, get out.”

In response, Insights offers, “Supporters defend enhanced immigration enforcement as necessary to address a declared ‘invasion’ at the southern border,” and “Restricting birthright citizenship and refugee admissions is framed as correcting alleged exploitation of immigration loopholes, with proponents arguing these steps protect American workers and resources.”

While the opinion piece’s stance is very clear, the AI-generated so-called-insight is comparatively mealy-mouthed, with phrasing like “a declared ‘invasion’ at the southern border,” leaving far too much unchallenged. While it would be far from ideal to descend into a rabbit-warren of AI-versus-human counter arguments, it feels very odd to allow AI the last word. What’s most frustrating is the implied assertion that the AI’s regurgitated claims are at all equally valid views to be presented alongside the opinion writer’s stated, well-sourced horror at ICE’s overreach.

As such, I fear Insights may be yet one more far from neutral, bias-reproducing AI, rather than a worthwhile tool that offers valuable context to readers. Insights notes, “The Los Angeles Times editorial staff does not create or edit [this] content,” so you can be sure that no pesky journalists were allowed to do their job and give the AI a stern talking to about uncritically repeating hearsay. Naturally, it would be ridiculous to hold the AI accountable for the decisions of the humans steering the ship—I just hope the course correction is swift.

Calling Tempest Rising a spiritual successor to Command and Conquer would undersell just how fiercely this game wants to be a part of the Westwood dynasty. From the thinly veiled faction analogues to the thundering synth metal soundtrack, right down to the mission interludes where your faction’s influence bleeds through the countries of Europe on the campaign map, Slipgate Ironworks’ mimicry of Westwood’s 1995 RTS is utterly brazen.

Yet Tempest Rising does more than sneak into Command and Conquer’s room and prance about in its clothes. It understands what made Westwood’s RTS such a timeless classic, enriching those elements to suit a modern audience. Its RTS action is pacey and spectacular, its dual factions are tactically divergent and demonstrate surprising strategic depth. Most importantly of all, its twin campaigns are meticulously crafted pressure-cookers that spin out the strategic fundamentals in thrilling, imaginative ways. In fact, Tempest Rising isn’t that far off being a classic itself.

Tempest Rising’s takes the premise of C&C, switches out a few proper nouns and chucks in a nuclear war for good measure. Set in 1997 in the wake of World War 3, the world has become afflicted by a strange new growth called Tempest, a russet, flowery structure that looks like a plant but isn’t. Tempest is hazardous to human health and spreads rapaciously, but it’s also an abundant energy resource. This makes it the primary catalyst of a war between Earth’s two dominant factions, the Global Defence Force (GDF) and the Tempest Dynasty.

Likewise, the basic play of Tempest Rising will be familiar to anyone even vaguely accustomed with real-time strategy. You establish a headquarters in a corner of the map, harvest some resources, build a base, recruit an army comprised of infantry and vehicles, then dispatch that army to pummel your opponent. Tempest Rising doesn’t alter these fundamentals in any radical fashion—it never intended to. But how you do these things is quite different depending on which faction you play as.

While the GDF and Tempest Dynasty are broad approximations of C&C’s GDI and Brotherhood of Nod, there’s considerably more going on in terms of how each faction operates. Virtually every action you perform in Tempest Rising works differently depending on the faction you play as. The GDF, for example, harvest resources using a refinery building that comes with its own tempest-gobbling dump truck, while the Tempest Dynasty uses a mobile harvesting rig with wheels that double as cute little cluster-robots when deployed.

Even basic construction works differently for each faction. The GDF place building blueprints on the ground which then construct over time, whereas the Tempest Dynasty hark back to the original C&C, building their structures within the construction menu, then placing them on the ground where they assemble instantly. This means they’re protected from being damaged during construction, but it also means you must be Johnny-on-the-spot when placing them, as queued buildings won’t begin construction until you deploy completed projects.

This asymmetry is most important, of course, when it comes to units and combat. The GDF is built around advanced technology and intel gathering. Its ground infantry are supported by drone pilots which fire micromissiles against vehicles and aircraft, while its mechanised units are led by fast scout 4x4s that can mark enemy vehicles to provide bonus damage for tanks. The Tempest Dynasty, by comparison, have a more fire and fury approach to combat, with an army led by flamethrower infantry and supported by offroad SUVs that fire cluster missiles and devastatingly powerful mobile rocket trucks. But they also have access to some of the weirdest units of all, such as a giant metal sphere that instantly destroys small and medium units by rolling over them.

Indeed, there are some real treasures within Tempest Rising’s unit roster. An obvious highlight from the GDF is the trebuchet, a heavy tank that transforms into an even more powerful stationary artillery cannon. Trebuchets are excellent defensive units, but they can also be devastatingly effective in the backline of an assault. My personal favourite, however, is the GDFs shieldmaiden, an anti-air hovercraft that quickly became an essential part of all my assault forces. Not only does its gatling laser make mincemeat of The Tempest Dynasty’s slightly superior air units, but it can also deploy a repair capsule that will automatically fix up your units in the field.

Most units have an active ability like this, which are complemented by a small selection of faction-wide abilities you can use at any time. These can also be combined in powerful ways. For example, the GDF can recruit a specialist sniper unit who can turn invisible, letting her sneak up to enemy positions and pick off infantry targets. But the GDF can also call in an airstrike on any positions it has line of sight with. So you can effectively use the sniper to conduct one-unit bombing raids on distant enemy bases. Of course, you’ll have to watch out for the Dynasty’s machinist, as this specialist can detect enemy units in stealth.

There are some real treasures within Tempest Rising’s unit roster

I could spend this whole review hashing out all the various abilities and combinations, but two things Tempest Rising is particularly good at are supporting armies within the field and empowering territory control. Both factions feature abilities that let them quickly establish small sub-outposts to claim key points on the map like tempest fields. The GDF can call down a beacon that lets them build anything within its radius while it’s active, while the Dynasty can recruit a salvage van that can deploy as a small construction centre, which both lets you construct buildings and defence while automatically repairing them when damaged. This means the GDF can spring up a small outpost out of nowhere, while the Dynasty’s can combine salvage vans with their harvesting rigs to spread across the map like a weed.

Hence, you’re not just throwing clusters of units at one other’s bases, with fights often encompassing large swaths of the map. And thanks to units like the shieldmaiden and the salvage van, which can be used as a mobile repair unit as well as a mini HQ, your armies are less disposable than in other RTS’, though they can still be obliterated in seconds if you’re not careful.

In short, beneath Tempest Rising’s simple throwback exterior is a ton of more specific features and abilities you can take tactical advantage of. Admittedly, it can be difficult to remember all these nuances in the heat of battle, but Tempest Rising tries to assist you in a number of ways. Pressing TAB will cycle through different units in a selected cluster, letting you quickly find the unit with the ability you want. Similarly, holding ALT while clicking will cause all units in a cluster to move at the same speed, meaning your faster, more fragile units don’t rush off and get blown apart by your enemy’s defences.

The main way Tempest Rising readies you for battle, however, is through its campaigns. Both campaigns are designed to guide you through the specifics of each faction, but they’re not tedious tutorials. Indeed, they’re totally unafraid to throw you into the wringer. The fifth mission of the GDF campaign, for example, sees you assume control of a central base with the goal of destroying several Dynasty convoys. These convoys travel through different areas of the map at set times. So you must clear out these areas of Dynasty defences and have enough firepower left over to deal with the convoy, while managing constant Dynasty attacks on your base, all in the space of about 25 minutes.

There are also just some great mission premises in general. The sixth mission of the GDF campaign is titled Pull that Base Apart, a stirring call to action that sees you slowly dismantling a sprawling Dynasty operation with a sniper and a handful of stealth hovertanks. The Dynasty campaign is a little slower to get going, but there’s a great mid-campaign mission where you’re abruptly pulled from the frontline for some bullshit assignment to help a large-scale tempest harvesting operation meet its quota. Naturally, things don’t go to plan, and you end up having to defend multiple bases from a massive GDF assault.

Slipgate understands how to craft exciting mission concepts out of the basic RTS toolkit, and Tempest Rising has that same immediacy and boldness that makes the old C&C games still fun to play thirty years on. This culminates in a dramatically different final act for both campaigns, one where you battle against a third faction known as the Veti, which function in a wholly different manner from the Dynasty and the GDF. I won’t go into too many specifics about the Veti, apart from to say they are quite scarily powerful and have some units that make the Dynasty’s crushing spheres look boring. In any case, their arrival into the campaigns gives them a real shot in the arm. Indeed, the final mission of the GDF campaign ended with me completely and utterly beaten—I was saved only by the clock.

Slipgate understands how to craft exciting mission concepts out of the basic RTS toolkit

As a package, Tempest Rising is pretty neat and tidy, with no glaring flaws I could point to. There are a few areas where I think it could be better, however. While the third faction is present in the campaign, you can’t play as them yet in multiplayer or skirmishes—they’re planned for a future update. And while I wouldn’t say I’m disappointed by this as such, a third campaign centred around the Veti would certainly help Tempest Rising stand apart from its inspiration.

Elsewhere, the fact the campaigns have the same general trajectory means whichever one you play second won’t have the same impact as the first. Finally, the inter-mission briefings are a welcome callback to C&C, but the real time 3D characters simply don’t have the charm of Westwood’s lovably daft FMVs.

This is the only area where the presentation falls short. Tempest Rising looks great in motion, with your vehicles kicking up dust as they roll across terrain, destroyed buildings collapsing in big, soupy explosions, and aircraft spinning out of the sky when shot down. Arguably more important, however, is that it sounds fantastic. Not only is the game itself sufficiently thunderous, the soundtrack is absolutely tremendous, with an array of musicians paying gleeful tribute to the music of C&C. Standout tracks include Death Squad, a Mick Gordon-ish spin on Red Alert’s Hell March, a pulsing, Rammstein-like synth affair named Aegis and a metal Soviet anthem written by former Witcher composer Adam Skorupa. And of course, there’s a bit of Frank Klepacki in there, as a treat.

Short of that third playable faction and a few more personable faces between missions, Tempest Rising is as good as you could hope a C&C successor to be. I say this with enthusiasm, but also some relief. The RTS has been in active retreat for years now, with strategy gaming pushing overwhelmingly toward turn-based tactics and grander 4X affairs. There have been several attempted counteroffensives, but none have succeeded.

Rather than try any bold new gambits, Tempest Rising digs its heels in, mounting a stalwart defence of everything that made the RTS great in the first place. It may not revolutionise the genre, but apart from that, Tempest Rising is exactly what the RTS needs right now.