RTS games used to be a hotbed of exciting stuff back in the days when everyone used to play Age of Mythology or Age of Empires on the LAN. Gradually, they were disrupted by innovations in the genre, like the ability to one-shot call down buildings or repair buildings without having units in Command and Conquer. This was revolutionary, since the level of automation allowed units to be solely combat or disruption-focused. Command and Conquer evolved into a multi-sequel franchise, spanning across multiple titles in a relatively short period as gamers flocked to the new dawn of RTS. With time, the rise of brainrot content and the decrease in the attention span of the average person playing video games, RTS took more of a back seat as other genres like RPGs became the golden poster boy for gaming. More recently, we’re seeing a resurgence of titles that are trying to bring back the glory of the old days, with Slipgate Ironworks‘ Tempest Rising being one of them.
Tempest Rising is a real-time strategy game developed by Slipgate Ironworks and published by 3D Realms and Knights Peak. The game launches on Steam on April 24, 2025, to welcome everyone back into the glorious fold of the RTS for “one last game”. With familiar classic games being the source of inspiration for Tempest Rising, I held the impression that this would be a solid title from the get-go.
Tempest Rising feels like a living, breathing remaster of the Tiberium Wars saga of Command and Conquer. The game takes place in the aftermath of World War 3, which led to the formation of two rival power blocs. The GDF, or the Global Defense Force, was a conglomeration of Earth’s mightiest militaries under a single banner. The countries of the United States of America, Canada, and Western Europe banded together under a single banner to preserve order in the world as part of the GDF. The Eastern European and Asian countries, heavily damaged by the war, banded together under a common banner called the Tempest Dynasty. The Dynasty claims ownership of the incoming Tempest mineral as their own “birthright”. The parallels with the GDI and the Brotherhood of Nod from the Tiberium Wars saga of Command and Conquer are pretty uncanny. Even their origin stories are pretty similar.
The main campaign puts one in the driver’s seat for both organizations. Briefings have been upgraded to HD versions of the still recordings that were shown back in Command and Conquer, and even the people offering the briefing can be interacted with to get more lore on the current condition of the world and how Tempest came to almost start another world war just after the third one ended.
The RPG-like dialogue choices that the game included doesn’t mount to anything beyond lore drops, and there are no significant choices here to be made (which was pretty disappointing, at least for me – if you’re adding dialogue-based interactions, make a few of them choice-based which affect the outcome of the mission or even the whole story). Starcraft 2 did something similar back in Wings of Liberty, so I’m not sure why something similar could not have been done here. However, in terms of the story itself, the developers have done a phenomenal job shaping the conflict between the two factions. (There’s a rumored third faction which hasn’t been added to the game yet – its gameplay is similar to the Scrin from Tiberium Wars, so it likely focuses on a hivemind-like approach to swarming enemies with large armies.)
Tempest Rising will be played a lot, mostly for the campaign itself, since that is something players like to focus on. The skirmish and multiplayer modes would be another thing to pull in, especially for older players. I’m happy the game has separated the skirmish and multiplayer into two separate modes, which helps solve a lot of problems in setting up custom maps against AI and against other human players.
AI pathfinding and quite good – the enemy/friend AI manage to find different ways to take control of the battlefield and then launch an all-out offensive to take out the enemy. The AI works in a step-by-step process by taking points of interest gradually, then makes its way up towards the main base locations – for some reason, they do know the spawn points for each of the maps. The only thing is that the AI does take its own time to move up the tech tree and unlock more stuff, while the player might have progressed further in building a base and moving up the tech tree while taking control of the map. I needed to crank the difficulty up to Hard to face a real challenge, because otherwise things were really tame and easy to handle when compared to games like Age of Empires or Starcraft (one likely reason is that the AI probably does not get additional resource income here to build and expand fast on additional difficulties – there are only changes to their playstyle).
Tempest Rising employs the fast-paced gameplay that Command and Conquer was known for. Players collect the resource called Tempest, convert that into credits, and use them to set up buildings or train units. Being able to train units from a panel on the UI and still seeing them come out from the closest structure is a godsend, because I don’t need to micromanage a lot of structures together like in Age of Empires. Also, one-click building construction means that one can set up defenses to slow down enemy advances pretty easily (which is especially useful when an enemy is already attacking). The construction area is pretty limited initially, restricted only to a certain range within the Construction Yard (the headquarters of any base). With powers or with certain units, this range can be extended.
In terms of resources, there are mainly three types of resources. Tempest is present as raw mineral deposits at places throughout the map, which can be mined by Harvesters and converted into credits. Credits are utilized to construct buildings or make units. There’s a limit to the amount of Tempest that can be processed into credits at any point of time, and this can be expanded by constructing Silos. Every building in the game needs power to function, which is generated by Power Generators and Advanced Power Generators. Lastly, there’s “intel”, which is generated by several actions like exploring the map, engaging in battles with the enemy, and so many more. Intel allows for the usage of powers ranging from revealing a portion of the map to airdropping a number of units at a location, all of which can be used to turn the tide of the battle. As far as I recall, deployable powers were only a thing in the Command and Conquer campaign, so making it available throughout was quite a genius move on the part of the developers.
One of the few gripes I have with the game is definitely with the half-baked cover and suppression. Derived from Company of Heroes, units can take advantage of terrain to be in cover before they attack – this allows for a slight edge in the fight. Certain units can suppress other units (some vehicles can continuously fire and force infantry to hit the ground to dodge shots), effectively reducing their power on the battlefield. The buffs or debuffs from this system in Tempest Rising aren’t game-breaking like in Company of Heroes, but going all into a game and pushing out units only for them to be defeated because they got suppressed doesn’t really feel good. I’m not a big fan of Company of Heroes because of the cover system, so I can’t feel that I like this half-baked inclusion in Tempest Rising.
Unit counters exist in every RTS game that has been built to date. In Age of Empires, Spearmen/Pikemen take down cavalry with ruthless ease, which isn’t seen in other units. Similarly, only soldiers with heavy weapons or mortars can take down enemy vehicles in Company of Heroes. Again, Company of Heroes made it more realistic by making it such that riflemen don’t damage tanks or other vehicles in the least. However, sometimes it’s way better to sacrifice realism for a more enjoyable experience, which is the boundary set by Tempest Rising. Here, multiple infantry with vanilla guns can damage vehicles, but it would generally not be recommended to use them unless the player has the upper hand in terms of numbers. Having a unit counter system that stomps harder than Age of Empires but provides a more enjoyable experience than the “realism” of Company of Heroes is definitely a win in my books.
Tempest Rising has the dark, somber atmospheric detail that Company of Heroes was known for. Except for the vibrant tempest zones, most of the world is painted in a dull palette to show the grim nature of the conflict over a rare resource alien to the planet. Unit designs look really well done thematically for both factions (I’m waiting to check out the third faction that is coming soon). The shaders used do make the game much better than what a possible remastered version of Command and Conquer might look like, so there’s that.
There are some minor performance issues, especially when there are a lot of things happening on the screen at once. Also, the NPC interactions during the campaign aren’t optimized well, and there are a few frame drops during the interactions with them. This looks more like a classic “Unreal Engine” issue to me than anything else, so I’m prepared to let them go for that. Most of the game runs smoothly otherwise, as long as players come rocking the recommended specs.
Real Talk
Tempest Rising might as well be one of the best strategy games of the year, where the release calendar does look to have a lot of strategy games on the horizon. This is definitely a game that’s worth a buy for anyone who wanted a Zero Hour 2 to be made by Electronic Arts for the Command and Conquer franchise. This is also worth a buy for casuals wanting to check out a new RTS game on their slightly new PC/laptop.
FINAL SCORE: 80/100