Title: Age of Darkness: Final Stand
Developer: PlaySide Studios
Release Date: Currently early access, with no announced full release date.
Platforms: Microsoft Windows
Reviewed on: PC (via Steam)
Price: $21.99

We all have a dream game, a combination of genres, mechanics, and ideas that combine together into something unique, and just for you.

Age of Darkness: Final Stand, from PlaySide Studios and Team17, is one of the unique games that may fulfill someone’s dream: a real time strategy game aimed toward tactical depth and sharp reactions, played alongside a city building tower defense game.

Age of Darkness: Final Stand has been in early access for three years, and some elements have changed significantly in that time. More is slated to change. Rather than being an exhaustive overview of something that may change like sand, this review is a snapshot of the game at this time. Is this the right game for you as of early 2024?

Gameplay

If you have played an RTS, you’re familiar with how Age of Darkness: Final Stand works. If you have played a tower defense, you’re familiar with how Age of Darkness: Final Stand works. If you have played a base builder, you’re familiar with how Age of Darkness: Final Stand works. If you have played a MOBA, you’re familiar with how Age of Darkness: Final Stand works.

What makes Age of Darkness: Final Stand unique is not only the combination of genres, but the ways that the game encourages alternate approaches to the material (for example, you want to build a larger base and defend outward, as you seek to have more and more of the map under your control.

The game currently has a survival mode, which is the real meat of the game, and a campaign. Survival leaders include Edwin, an aggressive close-range champion with flame damage; Merek, a support champion based around healing and boosts; Aelis, who summons guards and enhances the combat abilities of nearby allies; Cyrus, who encourages positioning with traps; Vizargo, who is more powerful at night; and Aurelia, who can drive allies into a fury, cripple foes, and claim the health of enemies. Survival Factions include the defensive Order, the tactical and expansionist Rebellion, and the aggressive Volatists.

Co-op has not yet been incorporated.

Controls & Pathfinding

Each of the genres that contributes to the game rely on clear, easy controls. As battles and building breakout around you, you need to be able to respond easily and often in real time. Age of Darkness: Final Stand’s controls are designed to facilitate snap, hotkey reactions to the evolving battle—but get in the way more often than not. The left-hand side of the keyboard is comprised of these short cuts, which means WASD are not dedicated to scrolling the map. That function is left to the arrow keys (and, at much slower speeds, the mouse); this leads to the left hand constantly shifting position from the left-hand side of the keyboard to the arrow keys. It’s an uncomfortable, awkward mechanic.

The pathfinding and AI need further help. Your units and enemies have a tendency to blob together, despite best efforts to keep your units in formation, and will sometimes not attack your selected target.

Final Score

This is either exactly the game you have been waiting for, or something you will quickly bounce off of. It is a unique combination of real-time strategy, city building, and survival under a pressing clock requiring constant attention.

The pathfinding and AI need adjustment, particularly as the unit formations quickly breakdown into blobs. The game has a complete campaign now, and a sizable roster of survival heroes. The co-op mode has not arrived yet.

Age of Darkness: Final Stand strays into one of my dream game territories, but something would always pull me out of it. I never entered the haze of strategy that consumes entire evenings, and I felt I was battling things like controls and the camera instead of it becoming second nature.

This isn’t a game for me. But it may be a game for you. It has rough edges, but those rough edges may perfectly fit you.

Disclosure: Boss Rush Network received a review code for the PC version of Age of Darkness: Final Stand. Neither PlaySide Studios nor Team17 made any stipulations upon this review, nor did they or any representatives read it prior to publication.

Featured Image: PlaySide Studios

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