Stormgate and the Promising Future of Frost Giant Studios

The current landscape of the games industry is something of a disaster. Large studios like Riot and Bungee are more profitable than ever, yet employees get laid off by the hundreds. More and more games are being released unfinished and half-baked, with promises of future updates to fix everything. Honesty between developer and consumer is fading, with more and more studios trying to hide their blatantly unfinished product from the public. And don’t even get me started on the rapidly growing AI and plagiarism issues!

Why? Easy answer: money. Because who needs a heart when you’ve got capitalism?

But I’m not here to talk about that. I’ll leave that to other articles. If you want to learn more, I’ll leave a list and links at the bottom of the page.

No, no, no. Today, I’m talking about a game studio that shows a lot of promise. That developer being Frost Giant Studios with their upcoming game: Stormgate.

Just in case you didn’t read the title of the article.

With the rise of the MOBA genre, the RTS genre whose custom game modes spawned it has faded more and more into obscurity. Where once games like Starcraft, Command & Conquer, and Warcraft III ruled the industry, they’re now a nearly extinct breed. Hell, you can’t even play the original Warcraft III anymore; you’re stuck with the butchered Reforged version!

Stormgate promises not just to bring the RTS genre back, but to evolve it. Campaign, co-op, versus mode, custom games, they’re all present. But the team of Frost Giant aims to take them to the next level. Bigger armies. More responsive online play. Easier access to tools. Etc.

They even made workers automated so that dummies like me don’t have to micromanage so much.

And with the developers they’ve got on staff, I’ve got complete confidence they could do it. These aren’t just people who’ve worked on the Blizzard classics of old. They’re RTS fans who truly love the games they’ve played and the ones they’re making. They even made a video introducing said devs, which is how I know all of this!

Now, it’s important to note that I am not an expert on RTS games. If I’m being entirely honest, I’m kind of awful at them. I’m the kind of player that likes to play the campaign, then screw around with weird armies online and get absolutely obliterated.

Why, then, am I, Mr. Casual, writing this article? Because it has been a long time since I’ve seen a developer communicate so clearly with their audience! No smoke or mirrors here; these guys want you to know what they’re working on, how they’re working on it, and the plan for how they’re gonna get it to you.

They’ve even already put the game in player hands! They’ve already held tournaments with the current build! We’re still a ways off from the full release, and we’ve already gotten a sneak preview of how the game will play in the hands of pro players! This is a team that has shown they’re willing to not just interact with their audience, but to actually listen to them!

Of course, the game itself is still in development. We’re a few months off from the closed beta, with the full release a long while off after that. There’s still plenty of room for something to go horribly wrong.

One thing that especially has me worried is their ‘ten year plan’ for Stormgate. That’s right, we’ve got another live service game on our hands here. Which means we’ll either get another No Man’s Sky, with frequent and substantial updates that improve the player’s experience, or we’ll get another Destiny 2 cash shop. With live services, there really isn’t any in-between.

Unless you count games being deleted completely…

Even so, in the current landscape of gaming, Stormgate shows a lot of promise. Frost Giant has got the talent, the passion, and the integrity necessary to make a truly phenomenal game. If nothing else, that has at least earned my optimism.

But if I can’t zerg rush the other player and get cursed at in chat, then they’ll have failed entirely.

Here are those articles I promised earlier.

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