Tempest Rising – Game Review

Tempest Rising – Although it declined in popularity in the late 21st century, the Real-Time Strategy (RTS) genre still boasts a dedicated fan base, especially with legendary titles like Command & Conquer and Warcraft, which have incredibly active player groups even today.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of the corporations that own these game franchises have no plans to develop sequels, so these fan communities are stuck with the old games, or slightly revamped versions in terms of graphics and sound like Red Alert Remastered .

It's not just strategy games that have hardcore fans; the general changes in the modern gaming world have also led to a sense of nostalgia among some gamers for classic game series, giving rise to a rather new trend: new games developed in a style that "borrows" the legacy of legendary game series.

For example, Daymare 1998 recreates the traditional 'survival horror' style of the Resident Evil series instead of the action-heavy style of recent releases, or Ion Fury 'mimics' the retro style of 90s shooters like DOOM or Quake , focusing primarily on 'action' rather than excessive and superfluous 'extra' elements.

However, in the strategy game genre, there hasn't been a single title that has truly stood out.

Only recently did one of the most prominent game developers in this 'reboot' movement, Danish game developer Frederik Schreiber and studio Slipgate Ironworks, announce a 'gift' for long-time Command & Conquer fans called: Tempest Rising .

Can Tempest Rising bring a breath of fresh air to an old game genre? Or will the game fail to meet expectations and only lead to further disappointment? Let's take a look at the following review from Vietgame.Asia!

YOU WILL LIKE

A GAME THAT'S BOTH STRANGE AND FAMILIAR!

The first impression Tempest Rising gives is that it's closer to an upgraded version of Command & Conquer (C&C) than a standalone game.

Indeed, right from the plot's setting, fans of C&C will find it incredibly familiar as the official timeline is 'bent' from the mid-1960s, along with a series of political crises and the rise of a completely new resource called 'Tempest,' which significantly altered the landscape of international relations, forming two factions: the Global Defense Force (GDF) and the Tempest Dynasty. Subsequently, an ancient force called Veti emerged and attacked both.

Sounds familiar, right? Just replace the GDF faction with GDI, the Tempest Dynasty with the Brotherhood of NOD, the Veti with Scrin, and finally the Tempest energy source with Tiberium, and you'll have a C&C version with modern graphics, built entirely with the advanced Unreal Engine 5!

Not only is the setting familiar, but the gameplay is also almost entirely copied from traditional C&C games.

To briefly explain for gamers unfamiliar with this genre, players interact entirely through a taskbar located on the right side of the screen. Actions such as building, training troops, and crafting tanks are performed sequentially, provided you have already constructed the necessary structures. This eliminates the need for 'construction workers', unlike the more common strategy games that fans have become accustomed to in recent years.

You'll be mining Tempest in areas overflowing with toxins and radiation that can 'damage' combat units other than specialized mining vehicles. You'll still need to build enough power plants to keep other structures running; otherwise, even something as 'taken for granted' in most other strategy games as maps won't work.

Besides the storyline and gameplay elements, you'll easily encounter familiar military units from the 'Combat and Combat' division in Tempest Rising .

For example, the GDF faction will possess the Hunter Tank, reminiscent of the GDI faction's 'Hunter' of the same name; the Tempest Dynasty faction will possess the Pillager, also capable of spitting flames like the NOD faction's Devil's Tongue in C&C ; or even the Voltaic Tank, the iconic tank of the 'red faction,' has a mechanism extremely similar to the Laser tank in the famous C&C Generals game .

That's not to say Tempest Rising is a carbon copy of the Command & Conquer series .

The development team from Slipgate Ironworks also added some modern elements to make the game feel fresh for players, such as drone units that are rather weak against anti-aircraft fire but powerful in long-range combat against tanks, or temporary power-up skills on individual units like 'blood burning' to increase the Voltaic Tank's power, adding more 'variables' to the player's micro-manipulations on the battlefield.

For the campaign mode, the game design team showed that they truly put effort into designing the levels, instead of just doing a superficial job and then focusing on multiplayer like some recent games.

Throughout each level, you'll be guided in the traditional Command & Conquer style , including a general mission at the beginning in the form of a dialogue that allows players to learn more about the mission, the setting, and cleverly activated secret missions that connect the storyline seamlessly and clearly, gradually revealing the conflicts in the game world, even escalating to a climax with the appearance of the Veti faction intervening in the war.

This multi-layered storyline creates depth in the game world, giving it a vibrant feel rather than a completely 'closed' world that is difficult to develop further, unlike many current strategy games.

With the campaign mode, the game design team showed that they truly put effort into designing the levels, instead of just doing a superficial job and then focusing on multiplayer like some recent games.

Finally, the high-quality graphics and sound of a modern game is another highlight of Tempest Rising , especially since fans familiar with the combat and combat genre have had to endure the somewhat outdated graphics of these games for a long time.

With Unreal Engine 5, the world in Tempest Rising is incredibly vibrant and realistic, featuring detailed models and stunning visual effects!

Of course, a real-time strategy game with many units appearing at once can't be as detailed as action games, but at least they're not as "toy-like" as many other strategy games.

The game's 'sound' is also quite well-executed considering it's a standalone title, especially the track 'By Our Blood,' which is quite reminiscent of the first C&C game thanks to its powerful rock style, creating an atmosphere that is both modern and strong, and also adding to the game's intensity.

However, it's a minor disappointment that the music still fails to deliver the immersive, "play and feel" experience of previous Clash of Clans games . Of course, this is just the writer's opinion – a long-time fan of the series – and for the average gamer, this is completely insignificant.

YOU WILL HATE

MANY 'FLAWS' NEED TO BE ADDRESSED!

If considered as a game inheriting the 'spirit' of the C&C genre , Tempest Rising has successfully accomplished its mission, but this has also led to many problems that make the player experience not as good as modern real-time strategy games.

First of all, the building and production mechanics of the C&C game series are an evolution of the tactical structure of Dune II , released back in 1992. Once again, this mechanism is a continuation of the tactical game style on consoles from the 1980s, designed for systems with extremely limited specifications.

That's why buildings can only be constructed sequentially (instead of building whatever you like in later strategy games), and military units appear sporadically. This slows down the combat pace in the early stages and gradually speeds it up in the middle and later stages, when players have accumulated sufficient tactical forces for large and epic battles, while constant skirmishes take place to learn about the enemy base's location and terrain using reconnaissance forces.

That's the theory, but many subsequent additions in C&C Tiberian Sun , C&C 3 , and C&C 4 made the game faster but also made the pace harder to grasp, and even more… luck-based.

The vast differences between unit types are another problem, making it very difficult to balance power between factions, especially when the traditional 'rock-paper-scissors' model of strategy games is completely broken.

Meanwhile, the power-boosting skills added to Tempest Rising further exacerbate this problem, even though the developers continuously release updates to fine-tune the relative power of units. However, to date, further adjustments are likely needed to achieve a more acceptable balance.

Furthermore, the use of Unreal Engine 5, which has a notorious reputation for poor optimization, has caused Tempest Rising to encounter numerous technical issues since its release. For example, the game sometimes crashes to a black screen upon startup, and gameplay can be interrupted or freeze unexpectedly.

Additionally, during large-scale battles, players may sometimes experience erratic fluctuations in frame rate.

Although the development team at Slipgate Ironworks has consistently released patches that significantly reduced critical bugs in the months following the game's official release, optimization issues remain, impacting the player experience to some extent.

…the use of Unreal Engine 5, which has a notorious reputation for poor optimization, has also caused Tempest Rising to encounter quite a few technical problems since its release.