Stormgate developers say they want to lower the RTS skill floor, not the skill ceiling: 'It's okay to be a high-skill game'

At the PC Gaming Show in June, we aired segments of a documentary about Stormgate, a new RTS from former Blizzard developers who worked on the legendary Warcraft and StarCraft series. That documentary, filmed at Stormgate developer Frost Giant Studios in Orange County, is now available to watch in full. In it Frost Giant president Tim Campbell calls Stormgate "a love letter to the history of realtime strategy," and says it was developed with a conviction that the traditional Blizzard-style RTS still has plenty of room for innovation.

Stormgate's factions are maybe the best evidence of Frost Giant's drive to meld RTS tradition with original gameplay design. The human Vanguard are immediately recognizable as echoing Starcraft's Terrans, while the Infernal Host feel a bit like if the Zerg were also demons from Diablo. But with the Celestial Armada, Frost Giant hoped to build an RTS faction that breaks the Starcraft mold.

The Celestials, a declining race of nomadic, technologically-advanced aliens, might have some  Protoss vibes at a glance, but they have a playstyle all their own. Rather than building out a base traditionally, Celestials start a match with a massive, monolithic, mobile HQ structure that hovers freely across the map. Foregoing builder units entirely, the Celestials HQ, Campbell says, "can project its power anywhere you want to," warping structures onto the battlefield from the alien armada looming in orbit above.

Celestials also have their full supply cap from the jump, meaning they don't need to slap down supply depots every time they want to expand their army. And while their units aren't as cost-effective in a straight-up fight, they can be augmented by nearby Celestial structures. Celestials bring "the whole map into play early on, and it gets players moving and building and expanding in a free form way," Campbell says. "They can do so in a different order than maybe a normal build order for a normal RTS race might go."

Rather than rewriting the traditional RTS formula, Frost Giant is working to make the experience more inviting for players who might've bounced off it in the past. Stormgate "maintains the high skill gameplay that has been the heart of RTS for so long, but still provides an on-ramp for new players," says production director and Frost Giant CEO Tim Morten.

"It's okay to be a high-skill game," Morten says. "That's actually a good and appealing thing. We never want to water down that aspect of RTS, but we talk a lot about lowering the skill floor." To do so, Frost Giant's introducing features like the "Buddy Bot," which can automate some of the complicated macro-level management that can be so daunting to players like me, who recoil in terror when we have to click between too many things in a short period.

In Stormgate, you'll be able to customize how much of Stormgate's worker management, expanding production structures, and army production you want the Buddy Bot to handle when it's toggled on. I might want to have it handle my worker management entirely, or I might set it so I still have control over when my workers are built, but pass the reins to it once they're built.

Alongside the Buddy Bot, Frost Giant's implementing game modes to appeal to players who are interested in RTS gameplay, but might not seek out the intensity of 1-on-1 competitive RTS matches. In addition to a story campaign that can be played with three players, Stormgate will have a separate 3-vs-AI mode, custom games, and a competitive 3-vs-3 mode where each team has to defend a single, large base structure.

"As developers, we really set out with Stormgate to make sure that no one aspect of the experience would trump the other aspects of the experience," Campbell says. "We want all players, of all skill levels, to be able to enjoy what we love about the RTS genre."

Stormgate will release in early access on July 30, 2024.