Forged Battalion review: A real-time strategy game where customisation is key
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Old school real-time strategy games were all the rage back in the early nineties and noughties, when Total Annihilation, Command and Conquer and Age of Empires ruled computer screens.
Award-winning games label Team17 and developers Petroglyph are hoping to cash in on that nostalgia with their latest offering Forged Battalion, a retro-inspired RTS set in the post apocalyptic 21st Century.
If you think this sounds like a typical and rehashed format for these types of games you wouldn’t be wrong, but Forged Battalion tries to fix this by adding a slight twist to the mix.
This time it’s how you utilise the crafting system which counts and could be what turns the tide of a losing battle.
But familiarity seems to be Forged Battalion’s strongest advantage as the hotkeys and controls are incredibly familar.
From the get-go I knew exactly what to do, what to build, and what the likely build order would be to unlock structures and units.
In fact, unless you’re a complete novice when it comes to RTS games then you won’t really need the tutorial, which honestly isn’t great to begin with.
Gameplay
As I said before, it’s fairly straightforward and pretty much your standard format of build a refinery, power plant, barracks, light vehicle factory, comm center, heavy factory, air factory, and finally super-weapon sequence.
Forged Battalion features a single-player mode with a campaign currently consisting of 7 missions, each unlocked as you complete the previous mission on a certain difficulty.
Skirmish maps can hold up to 8 players on each map, who can be human or AI players.
Moreover, every action in the game rewards you with research points, like destroying an enemy building or enemy units, construction of buildings, or the training of units.
Technologies give you more options for unit customisation.
Customisation may be the main selling point, and whilst it is limited at the start, it does allow players to build an army of their choice which adds a fun element of creativity to the way they wage war.
The biggest issue for me is the story campaign which involves taking on a group called The Collective.
It’s a fairly generic story with a bad guy trying to control the world, with you playing as the resistance attempting to defend it so that peace can eventually be restored.
Honestly though, in a game like this, the campaign is not the main attraction, it’s the multiplayer mode which will hopefully give it some longevity.
Verdict
This mode is already brimming with maps and a variety of game modes including HQ Destruction and Annihilation to delve into.
The graphics won’t blow you away, but the 2D graphics mixed with 3D adds a little cartoon spice to it.
Overall, it’s a well put together good time for old-time RTS players. Petroglyph were never going to break the mould with this one but it’s still early days so there’s a lot to be added and changed.
It may not have lived up to everything I wanted it to be, but what's there is fun, and if the developers listen to their player's feedback effectively, in six months time this could be one of the better RTS titles released in recent years.
Forged Battalion (£15.49): PC
A Steam copy of this game was provided by the publisher for review purposes. You can find all our reviews on OpenCritic .