I’m already very excited about Stormgate. It comes from the minds at Frost Giant Studios, including former Blizzard veterans who helped create the likes of StarCraft 2 and Warcraft 3 before branching out to pursue their love of RTS games while the company moved its focus to Overwatch and Diablo 4. Inspired by those classics and others like Command and Conquer, Stormgate is already shaping up to be something special, and now the team unveils three more big names involved with the project, including another notable Blizzard veteran.
Following its initial rounds of internal testing, Stormgate has just kicked off its closed beta, featuring both 1v1 competitive multiplayer and three-player co-op vs. AI, letting players experience both the intense competition and the ‘comp-stomp’ pillars core to many of the best RTS games of all time. I was fortunate enough to get some hands-on time in August, and you can read my thoughts as part of our exclusive Stormgate interview with assistant game director Brett Crawford.
Alongside its new trailer at The Game Awards, Frost Giant reveals that Simu Liu (Marvel’s Shang-Chi, Barbie) joins the cast as Infernal Host leader Warz. Seen at the very end of the latest trailer, Warz is a leading figure among the force of warmongering demons and will be a recurring playable character during the Stormgate campaign. Liu says he is excited to work on “a game that, in its DNA, is every bit the games that I loved growing up. I feel like it doesn’t get more authentic than that.”
“When Simu visited Frost Giant headquarters to show us his RTS skills, his passion really struck a chord with us,” Frost Giant CEO and production director Tim Morten says. He also comments on the game’s ongoing Kickstarter campaign, adding, “With community support, we can continue to expand the scope of our beta tests,” and notes, “We are also exploring other ways to get the game into players’ hands before we get to early access, so stay tuned.”
The team also reveals that the Stormgate universe was written in collaboration with two additional figures – New York Times bestselling author Micky Neilson, and Blizzard veteran Chris Metzen. Frost Giant tells PCGamesN that, prior to his dramatic return to Blizzard to spearhead the World of Warcraft Worldsoul Saga, StarCraft co-creator Metzen teamed up with his former colleagues to help build the all-new universe for Stormgate.
Stormgate is set to launch as a free game via Steam Early Access in the summer of 2024. You can wishlist it now on Steam. Game director Tim Campbell says that the team wants to continue iterating, polishing, and producing content with direct feedback from its audience, and says the full release will come “when it’s ready.”
In the meantime, the Stormgate closed beta is underway as of Tuesday, December 5, and the first live show matches are set to take place at DreamHack Atlanta on Sunday, December 17. For more details, you can visit the official Stormgate website.
While we await more news on Stormgate, be sure to check in with the best strategy games you should be playing on PC in 2023, as well as more great free PC games that you can jump into without spending a penny.
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