Frost Giant Releases Stormgate's Opening Cinematic

A neat video to watch ahead of Sunday's presentation

Frost Giant recently released Stormgate’s opening cinematic. I had some thoughts so I thought I’d write a thing on it. Here it is in case you missed it:

Blizzard-Like

I think a thing that’s fairly easy to appreciate about Stormgate is that it’s developed by a group of professionals with a lot of industry experience. This trailer looks good; if you told me that Blizzard made it, I’d believe you. My only nit is that I wish they’d add subtitling, because the auto-generated stuff doesn’t work well on this video.

… Maybe Too Much So

It’s only one trailer, and it’s the opening cinematic for the entire game, so I get that it kinda needs to shoot down the middle in order to appeal to as many people as possible. But, I dunno, man - it struck me as a little bit vanilla; maybe even a little bit watered down, if I’m being less charitable.

Nothing happens in this trailer. I mean, I’m not denying that stuff happens in this trailer (the writing quality of this Substack is really next level); what I mean to say is that nothing of substance happens. It’s all just kinda meh, like one of those plain hamburgers that you get at Disney World that’s been designed to be inoffensive to each and every park guest.

One example - the protagonist’s daughter phones him because the evacuation alarm is going off, and asks him if she can go to him, implying that she’s nearby. Later, the gates of hell open. And our father reacts to this with… kind of a shrug? “Dear god, what have we done?” Your daughter is nearby! Hellfire is, you know, right over there! You’re looking at what appears to be Satan! You gonna go, uh, check on her or something?

There’s no tension; no stakes. I’ve had stronger emotional reactions to spilling a cup of coffee. This dude is operating a Stormgate like it’s the last few months before he FIRE’s and he reeeeally wants to max that 401k match before sending in his resignation.

Amon Satan The villain is also a little… meh. His army of hell dudes conveniently avoid killing our protagonist, or really causing any sort of genuine violence at all (??). His overall plan appears to be to take over the world, which, well… OK, sure. But he’s shinier than a freshly manufactured action figure, so I suppose I’m just waiting for Buzz Lightyear to show up and save the day.

I’m not expecting an R-rating or anything like that. I think it’s fine if they want to make something kid-friendly, too. But this trailer feels too designed-by-committee, too generic; it’s so afraid to turn anyone off, it ends up feeling lifeless. I want to see Frost Giant go out on a limb and try to make something cool, not just avoid making something bad; you know what I mean?

Soul Food

I think one of the key benefits of developing an indie game is the ability to be creative, to tackle complex ideas, to do cool stuff. I feel that what makes independent games special is the way they incorporate the relatively unvarnished vision and creativity of their designers. And I’m not really seeing that here, at least not yet.

I wondered to myself if I just “don’t get it”, so I peaked at Stormgate’s Steam page again to see what exactly they’re going for:

Plunge into the heart of battle as the ultimate battlefield commander fighting for survival in a science fantasy universe, where Earth’s fate hangs on the edge of oblivion.

Human defenders and their faithful robot allies stand defiant against two warring alien factions: a race of warlike demonic invaders and their mysterious and alluring feline rivals. Together, these three are locked in a relentless struggle for dominance. Crafted by developers renowned for their work on StarCraft II and Warcraft III, Stormgate puts you in command of epic real-time strategy battles.

Hmm… nothing really stands out to me here, either. Doesn’t this sound like the description of a gazillion shovelware mobile games on the App Store?

What are they going for? Why does this game exist? What is it trying to accomplish? I don’t mean that in an antagonistic way, I mean it in the most anodyne sense - that the developers should answer these questions with the stuff they put out.

To add to that, I don’t think it’s quite enough to say that Stormgate is a spiritual successor to Blizzard-like RTS games with better developer support. I personally don’t think that kind of development philosophy leads to good outcomes. I think there’s gotta be more to it than that. Why are you making this game? What experience do you hope to create for players? I want to feel something when I watch an opening cinematic, I want to get a sense of what the game is; for example, I still remember the title screen of Battlefield 3 back on the Xbox 360, it kicked so much ass.

I certainly wouldn’t describe StarCraft II’s creative vision as “just a really good Blizzard RTS”. But maybe that’s how Frost Giant thinks about that game? I dunno, I sure hope not. Anyway, the company is revealing their third race tomorrow, and I hope that presentation covers a bit more of the game’s creative vision. I’m looking forward to it!

Until next time!
brownbear

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