I randomly came across the newest gameplay demo (Duel Over Saturn- video below) and based on that video alone had to find out everything I could about this game that seems to hold an incredible amount of promise.
This 6 minute video checked so many boxes that it has become one of my most hotly anticipated upcoming games (especially now that Zelda Tears of the Kingdom released). The visuals are breathtaking and the audio seems to be extremely well thought out and immersive with radio chatter, orders and comms between the sounds of gunfire, thrusters and missiles.
Beyond the incredible graphics, presentation and sound though is what appears to be one of my oddly favorite things – a naval combat game, centered around massive vessels rather than small fighter craft and carriers. Don’t ask me why… I can’t explain it… it’s been something that I’ve found just plain awesome as far back as the tabletop Battlefleet Gothic game that did not translate as I’d hoped into an RTS game in Battlefleet Gothic Armada. The feel of the ships in the Warhammer 40,000 universe were hulking, 1-5km long behemoths that have served the Imperium for centuries, if not millennia; crewed by thousands upon thousands of people. This feel was completely lost in the speed and scale of the game. The original BFG was a call back to historical naval warfare in the Age of Sail, trading broadsides and duking it out. There’s none of that in BFG: Armada.
However, Falling Frontier looks to be what BFG should have been. The game aims to make every ship feel like a massive, expensive asset and not an expendable, easy to replace unit. The goal is to make ships feel rare and precious, simply more than a pawn that you can send into battle without fear of losing. Which leads to the next major point, the additional layer of crews and officers for each ship.
From what’s been seen, it seems like each ship will have at least its own set of officers. How that will affect the running of the ship remains to be seen but that facet is promising and really lends itself to the power of keeping the game smaller in scale as far as fleet size goes. The trailer’s 2 v 1 battle over Saturn is the sort of combat that is intense and seems like it would be pivotal to lose one or especially two of these ships in a small-sized fleet.
The core of the game seems to feature an incredible map of the solar system (or we are told a randomly generated one) so battles can take place throughout. There is going to be a heavy focus on logistics and a few other showcases have shown off mining and hauling a bit, though I don’t think we’ve seen how it will look on a macroscale. It will certainly be interesting creating small flotillas and trying to defend your assets as best as possible with the limited resources at your disposal. It doesn’t seem like it’s a game where you’ll be able to get a fleet of dozens of ships all together and steamroll and from that perspective it looks fantastic.
The ship customization seems to be there with customizing turret and weapon upgrades along with subsystem and component swaps. Not much is known here but it was stressed that fleet composition creating flotillas of ships with loadouts that work well together will be critical to success in battle.
The combat itself looks pretty slow and methodical, and the ships turn so slow. The ships pound at each other with flurries of missiles and broadsides from massive turrets like it is a return to age of sail naval combat… and it’s AWESOME! As I had mentioned before, the breakneck speed of Battlefleet Gothic was a nightmare of who can push ability buttons faster, but this looks like what it should have been. The ships slug it out in what looks like almost slow motion, as I’d envision combat to be in the future. It also looks like radar and stealth will play an important role (silent running was an option for the ships), in addition to abandoning ship and life pods and more.
Last, it seems that the game is getting full mod support from the start- hopefully at the very least seeing new ship sets, to other more advanced gameplay changes and additions. I can’t imagine how great it will be when some experienced modders get ahold of it. Maybe… just maybe we’ll see a conversion mod to make Battlefleet Gothic the way it was intended.
I watched a bit of older videos that the developer/publisher released, one showing some campaign footage, or longer gameplay. It still remains to be seen how a game / match plays out, with resources and creating bases in a traditional RTS-sense. Or a full campaign for that matter. Since multiplayer is currently off the table and I’m doubting it will ever be something we see for it, I’m hoping there is a lot of replayability, especially in a sort of career-type mode. It would be very interesting to see a mode where you’re more of a flotilla commander, taking charge of just a couple ships and being given orders to patrol sectors and deal with various events, fights, etc. This would obviously be a departure from the RTS that it is but doesn’t mean it can’t exist in the same game.
I’ll be keeping a very close eye on this one.
