Forged Battalion – Review
Forged Battalion, one of the many titles from Petroglyph, has recently left Early Access so we went back to see what changes were made and how the game is doing. As we mentioned in our preview, they promised to take on board suggestions made by the fans and were driven to creating a title that would bring back the C&C nostalgia that Westwood studios brought us so many years ago. But have they succeeded in their goal or has Forged Battalion become of one those titles you play once and will never remember?
Story
Since leaving Early Access, the amount of (re)playable games have gone up from six to fifteen thus giving the player more possibilities to progress into the campaign. Unfortunately, there isn’t really a campaign you can progress into: you are still part of a Resistance Group at the of the 21th century where climate change has ravaged the Earth, where most people have perished and the survivor’s band together in organizations to survive. One of these organizations is called The Collective, an aggressive collective whose goal it is to rule the world. And that is pretty much it, there is no incentive nor motivation for the player to feel connected to any character in any way.
Graphics
No changes have been made to the graphics since the Early Access phase which means that the game still looks the same as before. The overall look of the game comes across as cartoony but has a polished look about it. The environment, such as houses and abandoned vehicles, has the same vibe about it and is destructible (bridges have the immortality factor as they are crucial to the fast pace of the game). The player controllable units and buildings have a higher level of detail to them, so you can distinguish in a heartbeat what is an enemy and what is target practice. Battles will get more crowded and hectic as the game progresses, but none of the weapons are graphically intimidating so a rocket barrage hitting an enemy base will look like raindrops falling on a window. The maps are mostly flat, with ores scattered all over them – this again is to promote quick Zergs and because of this even the slowest infantry can walk to the end of a map in a matter of minutes. Rivers and such look very fluid but no interaction is possible with them. All this low-key mayhem you’ll be watching from the standard top-down perspective that RTS fans have learned to love.
Sound
Same can be said regarding the sound, though that didn’t require any updates as it already felt finished and fitting. The soundtrack is heavy on the electronic beats, the likes of such you might remember from older C&C titles. Battles don’t look intimidating, but they also don’t sound intimidating: launching one rocket or ten doesn’t make a difference seeing you’ll still feel underwhelmed by it. Units don’t have soundbites when you give them orders (“Something needs doing?” “Kirov Airship, reporting for duty” – you won’t hear anything like this) so it’s just you and your silent AI army which makes it hard to feel bad when you lose a specific unit that’s been you since the beginning of the game.
Gameplay
Forged Battalion is a top down RTS focused on micromanagement and base building. The goal is to take down your enemies with your custom-made faction, where you choose your strengths (and your weaknesses). A 1v1 match can take anywhere from five minutes to twenty-five, depending on your playstyle and specialization of your units and buildings. You can play with maximum eight players on a map, grouped in whatever teams you prefer.
Per played game (wins giving more) you receive RP which is used to unlock new skills in the three-tiered Tech Tree. You are free to choose which path you want to pursue (more traditional weapons such as RPGs or you could go for more experimental ones such as lasers), but the third-tier weapons will always be the most powerful. You could choose to create a faction that focuses on light RPG vehicles with the goal of base rushing your opponent before he can field his expensive but powerful units but as in every game, this is a gamble you will have to choose to take.
Apart from the harvesters, you can divide your units into five different classes: infantry, light vehicles, heavy vehicles and drones. These five classes are all upgradeable and can be customized, from which weaponry they will employ to which kind of tracks and armor. You can save multiple templates in the Faction Creator and you can swap them out at any time – but it is wise to keep their cost in mind, so you know which play-style you should employ for your favorite created faction. You can field three units from each class, so you need to think ahead to their weaknesses and how you are going to counter them to ensure you have a suitable all-round team on the field ready to stomp any opponent.
Apart from fine-tuning the different weapons depending on the most common complaints on the forums, no further action has been taken to create more toys for the player to have fun with. The Tech Tree remains the same as before and laser-based weapons are still the way forward if you want to dominate your opponents. Though you unlock those very late in the talent tree, you will be forced to grind RP to be able to unlock all the goodies you have set your eyes on.
Lastly, your units do not gain veteran ranks in games which feels like a slap in the face of any RTS fan as what is more fun than having an elite squad stomping on newbie enemies and you taking all possible precautions to ensure that your babies stay alive and dominant?
Conclusion
Forged Battalion had a real chance to revive the C&C feeling and attract a plethora of RTS gamers to their standard, which would have allowed their competitive vision of e-gaming to blossom. But unfortunately, this title undersold, wasn’t picked up by the masses and is currently being peddled in bundles such as Humble to try and get their sales numbers up. This also means that the creators seem to have given up on this title: gone are the days where you would see staff interact with gamers on the Steam Forum or them giving regular updates on what they were working on and how excited they were. If anything, it seems they have moved on to the next project and made Forged Battalion into their unwanted child they used to love but now ignore their phone calls. If you’re a fan of the RTS genre and are looking for a cheap new title to spend some hours on, pick this game up but don’t expect regular updates or a big player base, just play it for the nostalgia you most likely feel from playing RTS titles decades ago.
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