Stormgate News

Early Access is here, and we're excited to feature the community playing Stormgate.

Stormgate is FREE and launches into Early Access August 13, 2024!

Want to get into the game even earlier?
Visit the Stormgate page on Steam and pre-purchase any Early Access Pack to get in on July 30!:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2012510/Stormgate/

Stormgate is Frost Giant Studios' love letter to classic RTS games and a work of passion and dedication from our team. Early Access is an essential milestone in our journey, but far from the final destination. This initial release, which features competitive 1v1, the start of our ever-evolving campaign, 3P co-op missions, and custom games, is only the beginning. We plan on telling more stories, introducing new game modes, and sharing the tools we've been using to build our game with the community.

Check out the Stormgate Roadmap to see what's on the horizon:
https://playstormgate.com/news/the-stormgate-roadmap

Questions? Refer to the FAQ:
https://playstormgate.com/faq

If you've been a Stormgate playtester, you're going to want to read this list of the ten most impactful changes coming to Stormgate PvP carefully before diving back into the ranked ladder. Let's get into it!

[h2]1. More Powerful Creep, More Rewarding Rewards[/h2]

Creeps are a crucial part of our game, but we received feedback that the rewards they provided were not enticing enough relative to the risk and attention it required to kill them. We’ve reworked the Creeps to both be much more enticing and difficult to kill, allowing them to play a much more impactful role in the game.

[h2]2. Map Reworks[/h2]

We’ve made a ton of changes to every map that drastically alters how they play. Most notably, the positions of Creep camps have been tweaked on every single map. Some maps, such as Titan’s Causeway and Isle of Dread have undergone huge reworks based on player feedback. Combined with the Creep reworks, each map should feel like a new experience.

[h2]3. Increased Tier-Up Times[/h2]

We increased the time it takes to tier up your command structures to reinforce more distinct early, mid, and late-game phases. In addition, this change allows tiering up to be more meaningful gates to key pieces of powerful tech. No more rising up the corporate ladder in record time for those easy promotions!

[h2]4. More Economic Harassment Opportunities[/h2]

We agree with the feedback that it was a bit difficult to harass players’ economy, especially for Celestials. While we never want worker harassment to be too volatile, we think the current situation discourages engagement with each others’ bases. As a result, we’ve tweaked B.O.B. Overcharge, Prisms, and Collection Arrays. Let us know how this feels after you test this out for yourselves.

[h2]5. Veterancy Specialization[/h2]

We’ve standardized the Vanguard Veterancy bonus to grant health and damage bonuses across the board as well as one special bonus that makes veteran units do their job better. Combined with the Promote ability, our intention is that you’ll be able to more specialize into key units that counter your opponent’s army. Suddenly surprised by a ton of Spriggans? Pump out a Hornet and Promote it for an effective counter!

[h2]6. Bringing Back Infestation[/h2]

In our Elephant closed beta release, the Gaunt’s Infest passive was overly centralizing the early-game, causing too many Fiends to be generated before players of other factions could reasonably hold them off. In our Frigate release, we removed the Infestation passive and instead kitted them to be more of a speedy skirmisher. While we got feedback that the new Gaunt was very fun to play with, others felt that the Gaunt had lost some of its soul and identity. As such, we’re reintroducing the Gaunt’s ability to Infest but putting it behind an upgrade so we can delay the timing at which it comes online. This allows them to be the best of both worlds: a speedy skirmisher that also Infests!

[h2]7. Animus Tweaks[/h2]

Similarly, in our Elephant release, Animus was generated too slowly early-game but too quickly later on. In Frigate, we made some changes that normalized the generation rate, but the resulting numbers made Animus too rare, causing Animus Rituals to be hardly used. Specifically, we removed the ability to gain Animus from killing enemy units. While this allowed Animus to become more of a comeback mechanic, a negative side-effect was that it disincentivized Infernals players from creeping/trading, which wasn’t very thematic with what Infernals are all about. In EA, killing enemy units will now grant some Animus, and Animus Rituals have all been rebalanced to encourage players to use their abilities.

[h2]8. Celestial Power and Construction Reworked[/h2]

First, Power. We received two main pieces of feedback from our first iteration of Power:

It felt more stick than carrot, more of a punishment than a bonus.

It felt binary: you never cared about how much extra Power you had, just that you were not in Red Power.

We’ve made a few changes to address this feedback:

You now gain passive bonuses for being in Yellow or Green Power.

Red Power no longer prevents you from building structures, attacking with structures, or using Energize from Power Banks.

Astral Interventions now cost Power, which recharges over time.

Power Redistribution has been replaced with Power Surge.

Then there’s construction. The most prominent feedback we received about Celestials was how difficult it is to understand where to start due to their build options being locked behind the Quick Macro Panel. In addition, players were confused why certain buildings were built from the Morph Core and others were built through the Quick Macro Panel. In response, we’ve surfaced additional ways to build structures without accessing the Quick Macro Panel and allowed Morph Cores to morph into any structure more efficiently than through other means. We hope this feels more intuitive and player-friendly.

[h2]9. Upgrades Galore[/h2]

We’ve added 27 new upgrades into the game, many of them Tier 3 upgrades that will change the way you use lower-tier units in the game. In addition, we’ve added faction-wide upgrades that affect core faction mechanics. Some of our favorite upgrades include:

Survival Protocol: Allows Exos to negate fatal damage once every 120 seconds.

Molten Touch: Allows the Hellborne to light enemy units on fire.

Divebomb: Allows Shadowflyers to Divebomb enemy structures.

Darkness Spreads: Increases the radius of all Shroud by 50%.

[h2]10. Less Durable Towers[/h2]

Finally, we received feedback that turtling with towers was too strong a strategy in our final closed beta playtest. We attribute this to the strength of and especially the durability of towers and that the only counter to towers were artillery units that could be zoned out by more artillery units from other factions.

To address this, the spammable towers from Infernals and Celestials were reduced in durability, and we’ve added some abilities that allow for alternative ways to counter/bypass towers. In addition, we hope that by highlighting the importance of Creep camps, turtling on low base counts will be less enticing. Going into Early Access, the strength of towers is something we’ll be closely monitoring.

Stormgate launches into Early Access tomorrow (and goes free-to-play on August 13, 2024) and we’re celebrating with a month-long Twitch Drops campaign with three in-game rewards!

[h2]Stormgate Twitch Drops Rewards[/h2]

From July 30–August 27 starting at 1 p.m. PDT, Twitch Drops will be enabled for all Stormgate-streaming channels. If you tune in to any streamer with Drops enabled, you’ll be able to start earning progress towards these three Twitch-exclusive cosmetics.

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In addition to these cosmetics, we’ll have a special Drops campaign where you can get into the game on the final day of the Early Access Preview for free! Starting at 1 p.m. PDT, watch Stormgate on Twitch for three hours and you’ll earn a Steam key that will allow you to play Stormgate early for just a few hours before the game becomes free-to-play for everyone on August 13, 2024.

Regardless of whether you’re aiming for the in-game-items, game access, or both, we hope you and our many Stormgate commanders around the world join us for this special launch event. We’ve also given many of our Stormgate streamers some digital packs to give away, so watching Stormgate will be a reward-filled adventure for the next few weeks!

[h2]How to Earn Drops[/h2]

To start earning progress towards your Twitch Drops, head to the Drops & Rewards button in your Twitch menu and search for Stormgate. Once you find our Drops campaign, click Connect to head to our account linking website, where you’ll be prompted to link your Twitch and Steam accounts. Once you’ve done that, you’ll be able to start earning progress towards your rewards while watching Drops-enabled streams.

Once you’ve unlocked a reward by watching the required hours, you can head back to your Drops dashboard and click Claim. Once your reward(s) are claimed, you’ll have them in your inventory the next time you log into Stormgate.

Please keep in mind that the Preview Period access drop that begins on August 12 will be a separate Drops campaign, so you’ll have to link your account again to start earning progress for that campaign once it begins.

[h2]How to Enable Drops on your Twitch Channel[/h2]

If you’re a content creator interested in streaming Stormgate, you’ll be able to enable our Drops campaign on your channel by navigating to your Creator Dashboard and clicking Viewer Rewards → Drops, then making sure your Enable Drops toggle is set to “On”.

Once drops are enabled for you, as long as you set your Stream Category to Stormgate in your Stream Manager, drops will automatically be enabled for your viewers. We encourage you to add !drops or some other indicator to your Stream title so that your viewers know that drops are enabled on your channel when browsing Stormgate streams.

We plan to begin our Drops campaign around 1 p.m. PDT on July 30, 2024, but this time may be subject to change based on how our initial launch goes. Keep an eye on our Stormgate Discord server and social media channels for updates!

For more information on how to earn and claim drops, you can also read their official Twitch Drops FAQ.