What a curious meeting this age of darkness ! To be completely transparent with you, I was worried for two reasons: one is that my last STR was almost a decade ago, the second is that I hadn't been able to get my hands on the base game yet ...Never mind, I went there and played the honesty card. The team in place does not hold it against me, quite the contrary, and follows a presentation of the game in the broad sense, then the new features to come, and finally a little grip!
You guessed it, Age of Darkness: Final Stand, by its full name, is a real-time strategy game set in a world inspired by dark fantasy, where you must build and evolve bases in order to fight against armies of creatures called "Nightmares". However, we are far from the "small scale" battles that games like StarCraft and other Age of Empire. Here, we face real hordes, which can reach up to 70 units thanks to technology developed in-house. You have to see it to believe it, but the game remains perfectly fluid and pleasing to the eye. Simply stunning, especially when you see this greenish tide crashing against our poor little army of soldiers and making short work of them.
It's fine to display tens of thousands of units, but apart from that, what does this STR offer? Well, well, a lot of things. The game takes place roughly in two stages. During the day, you can go with a small troop to scout, the creatures only being aggressive after dark. We thus explore the map by extending its territory. And we prepare our defenses in parallel, all this as soon as we have gathered enough resources, which are generated automatically, as long as we build the appropriate buildings allowing the extraction of wood and other minerals. If you feel confident enough, you can attack enemies, but that's not the main goal of the game, which really works on expansion and defense mechanics more than attack. Either way, if you advance too far, you will take damage from a fog that is dangerous for your troops.
Age of Darkness: Final Stand
At night, you will have to be careful to cover your entrances and other ramparts. Enemies will attack in small troops. Nothing too complex to manage at this time, as long as you know how to lead your troops correctly. On the other hand, during the Nights of Death, it will be a different story. These nights will require maximum vigilance, since the enemies will arrive in droves to try to regain lost ground and extend the Darkness. The management of your units will have to be fine, and you will have to rely on your Hero (a heroic unit that has unique skills, as we often see in games of the genre) to hope to see the end of the night. It was a resounding failure on my end, even though the developer told me it was a pretty good performance for a first hands-on. Honor is saved, if I may say so.
This was followed by a small presentation of the new units to come, the first being a support unit that will provide support to the surrounding comrades, the second a heroic unit named Edwin, the flame bearer. A melee/mid-range unit that can destroy enemies with area-ravaging flame abilities. Enough to energize the fights, by bringing a little new blood to players who are already well established in the game!
To say that I fell in love with age of darkness may be a bit strong. However, the game aroused my curiosity and I have already recovered my access to early access to try it out more in depth. The two hours of play investigated during the writing of this article allow me in any case to confirm that there is a lot of potential!
