Tempest Rising Preview: An RTS That Takes Me Back to the ‘90s
As soon as I fired up the Tempest Rising demo for the first time, I had a good feeling. Watching the opening cinematic, which set the tone with cheesy dialogue from bulky armored soldiers and a reedy scientist, I couldn’t help but smile. The music, UI design, and units seem tailor-made to take me back to high school, when I’d stay up late playing Command & Conquer with my friends, hopped up on Mountain Dew, taco-flavored Pringles, and sleep deprivation. Recapturing the feeling through a new game in the modern era is a blast, and I’m excited to see what else the developers at Slipgate Ironworks have in store at launch and beyond. Whether I was jumping into Skirmish to play against bots with clever AI, or Ranked Multiplayer, playing Tempest Rising feels as comfortable as putting on my well-worn baseball glove.
My initial reaction is no accident, either. The developers told me they set out to create a nostalgic real-time strategy (RTS) game that evoked the classics of the 90s and 2000s, with quality-of-life improvements expected of modern games. Set in 1997, Tempest Rising takes place in an alternate history in which the Cuban Missile Crisis exploded into World War 3. In the wake of widespread nuclear bombardment, strange flowering vines started to grow. These plants contain vast amounts of electrical energy, ushering in a new era of power for those prepared to withstand the fallout to harvest them.
Since the build I played was focused exclusively on multiplayer, I’ll have to wait to see what story mode will bring, but it will feature two replayable 11-mission campaigns, one for each of the main factions available in the preview. The Tempest Dynasty (TD) is an alliance of Eastern European and Asian countries who were the most devastated by WW3. The Global Defense Forces (GDF) on the other hand, are an alliance between the United States, Canada, and Western Europe. There is a third faction, but we’ll have to wait to learn more until the campaign is available, as they
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