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00:02 - Hello and welcome to the Stormgate Kickstarter.
00:09 I'm Tim Campbell, I'm the Game Director and President
00:11 here at Frost Giant Studios.
00:13 And we are here assembling some of the world's greatest
00:17 RTS developers who've worked on some of the biggest
00:19 franchises in the genre to come together
00:22 to build the next evolution for the real-time strategy
00:26 genre.
00:27 Welcome to Stormgate.
00:28 (dramatic music)
00:31 - Fight.
00:40 (dramatic music)
00:42 Power.
00:43 (dramatic music)
00:45 Either way, your world will fall.
00:47 - Our vision is to make the most fun RTS of all time.
00:55 And to us, that means a lot of different things.
00:58 First, it starts with core gameplay.
01:00 We're opening up the RTS experience to new players
01:02 through new modes, new ways of playing.
01:04 Whether you like story or you enjoy cooperative experience
01:07 or you wanna get right in the ladder
01:08 and play hardcore competitive,
01:10 we have content for you in Stormgate.
01:14 To build this vision, we had to start first
01:16 with the technology and tools to bring it to life.
01:19 - I'm James Anhalt, the Chief Architect here at Frost Giant
01:21 and I'm here to show you the custom tech
01:23 we built for Stormgate.
01:24 It transforms Unreal Engine 5 into the most state-of-the-art
01:27 real-time strategy game engine.
01:29 Get ready for Snowplay.
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01:34 Snowplay plus Unreal Engine 5 makes Stormgate
01:55 a truly next-gen real-time strategy game.
01:59 And we can't wait for you to get your hands on it and play.
02:02 - At early access, we will have three distinct
02:05 asymmetric factions, each with their own unique gameplay,
02:09 their own unique identity, and core mechanics
02:12 that are unique to them.
02:13 We began developing Stormgate by focusing
02:16 on our 1v1 mode initially.
02:17 And this allowed us to make sure that the game
02:19 was responsive, units felt good, and the game blew us away.
02:23 The response to our earliest pre-alpha test
02:25 was that it was already incredibly fun.
02:28 And so we've carried that with us forward into other modes.
02:31 - Discovery, this is Command.
02:33 - We're kicking off early access with the first few chapters
02:36 of an epic sweeping campaign that will allow you
02:39 to experience the story of Stormgate
02:40 either solo or cooperatively with your friends.
02:44 As an extension to our universe,
02:47 we're building an expanding roster of hero characters
02:51 that you can use in the single-player campaign
02:53 or co-op as you're exploring the story,
02:55 but that you can also lead into battle
02:58 in the three versus AI cooperative mode
03:01 or in the 3v3 team mode that we're building
03:04 after early access.
03:05 We're then taking the technology and the tools
03:08 that we've used to build all of these modes
03:10 and we're bundling them up to release to you
03:12 so that you can really unleash your creativity
03:16 and introduce the world to your own stories,
03:18 your own characters, and your own mods.
03:22 Storytelling is near and dear to my heart.
03:24 It's why I got into the games industry
03:26 and began developing this time it came in the first place.
03:29 I was the lead campaign designer on Warcraft III
03:32 and the Frozen Throne, where I contributed
03:34 to some of the epic chapters in Warcraft's history.
03:37 Together with the designers here at Frost Giant,
03:40 we're working with Mickey Nielsen,
03:42 a multiple award-winning, best-selling author
03:45 who helped contribute to Warcraft and StarCraft
03:47 working over 23 years at Blizzard on those franchises.
03:51 Additionally, early on, we partnered
03:52 with Chris Metzen himself, the War Chief,
03:54 and one of the key creatives who came up with the vision
03:58 for Warcraft and StarCraft originally.
04:01 Together, we've created a framework for storytelling
04:03 that's going to enable us to tell an ongoing narrative
04:06 for years to come.
04:07 So let me tell you a little bit
04:10 about the universe of Stormgate.
04:11 We're bringing together some of the best elements
04:13 of both fantasy and sci-fi
04:15 into a new post-apocalyptic setting.
04:19 We're set in the near future,
04:20 inside the midst of this apocalypse,
04:22 where an alien race of infernal, demonic invaders
04:27 has swept into the world and destroyed civilization
04:30 as we know it, subjugating all of humanity.
04:32 And in the middle of this, we mix together
04:34 post-apocalyptic settings with survivors
04:37 and ragtag militias and marauders
04:39 and all these desperate circumstances,
04:41 along with hard sci-fi elements like battle mechs
04:44 and spaceships and cybernetics.
04:47 And then we introduce, through the others,
04:50 these fantasy elements with dark magic
04:52 and sorcery and rituals.
04:53 At the end of the day, what we really want to do
04:56 is be able to have a mech punch a dragon.
04:59 I had the pleasure of working
05:03 on the StarCraft II version of co-op,
05:05 and it was a mode that I loved dearly.
05:07 We see Stormgate's highly replayable three-player co-op mode
05:10 as an evolution of that mode
05:12 in which there are even more replayable missions.
05:16 There are more opportunities to cooperate.
05:18 In addition, enemies will be more varied.
05:20 There will be more dynamic occurrences in every given map.
05:24 One of our primary design goals with Stormgate co-op
05:27 is that it'll be a new experience every time you play.
05:30 A large part of what makes Stormgate co-op very exciting
05:33 is the heroes that we have planned for you all.
05:35 The Stormgate hero is not only
05:37 just a unit on the battlefield.
05:39 It's also a brand new array of global abilities
05:42 you can use anywhere on the map
05:44 and new units that are very specific to the hero itself.
05:48 Let's take our first co-op hero,
05:50 Blockade, from the Vanguard faction.
05:52 Blockade is known for being a resilient fighter
05:56 supporting his teammates with heals and buffs.
05:59 But Blockade's not just about defense.
06:02 As one of the most grizzled fighters in the Vanguard army,
06:05 he'll be able to jump into the battlefield
06:07 and swing his hammer around to strike fear into enemies.
06:10 And in a pinch, he'll be able to help his allies
06:12 from across the map with his ability to teleport
06:15 not only himself, but his units across the battlefield.
06:18 Co-op in Stormgate is really a mode for everyone,
06:23 and we can't wait for you to try.
06:25 For more than 20 years, real-time strategy games
06:30 have been a leader in the world of competitive gaming.
06:33 With Stormgate, we want it to be easier than ever to compete.
06:36 Our goal is to reduce the points of friction
06:38 to enter events and play with your friends,
06:40 find out who the best player in your school,
06:43 in your town, in your city is.
06:45 If you follow a content creator,
06:46 if you're part of an online community,
06:48 we want you to be able to play with your friends
06:50 and other people in that same group.
06:52 We want you to be able to spin up a tournament
06:53 and just be competing immediately
06:55 and removing any obstacles that prevent you from doing that.
06:58 At Frost Giant, we see competition
07:00 as more than just esports.
07:02 It's about community.
07:03 It's about empowering and facilitating the community
07:06 to do what they love and to let them do what they wanna do
07:09 without dictating it to them from the top.
07:11 Just so much damage over time on the high ground here.
07:14 Gaunt's trying to snowball,
07:15 but they're just gonna take a massive shot.
07:17 We've already gotten the game into the hands
07:18 of some of the most skilled players in the world,
07:20 and the results have been phenomenal.
07:22 It's been fun to watch, it's been super interesting to play,
07:24 and it's been incredibly exciting to see.
07:26 The RTS genre has a long and glorious history
07:31 with editors being released to the community.
07:33 We've seen entire new genres spring out
07:36 of the Warcraft editor, for example,
07:38 with Tower Defense and MOBAs.
07:41 That started out as RTS mods and maps,
07:44 and then grew into entire new genres
07:46 that have dominated the gaming industry.
07:48 We aim to continue that tradition.
07:50 Our team worked directly on the editors
07:53 for Warcraft and for StarCraft.
07:54 We built content with them,
07:55 and we actually helped build the tools themselves.
07:58 We're rolling all of that knowledge and experience
08:01 into the tools for Stormgate to release to you.
08:05 One of the powerful new innovations we've done
08:07 is that the editor and the tools are not a separate client.
08:09 They're built directly into the game itself.
08:11 So with the press of a button,
08:12 you can switch between gameplay and editing mode
08:15 in order to make it fast and a tight loop
08:17 to be able to create and test your own content.
08:20 These tools will be usable to build mods,
08:22 they'll be used to make maps,
08:24 and tell your own stories and build your own campaigns.
08:27 Our four Cs, the campaign, the co-op, the custom games,
08:32 and of course, the competitive gameplay,
08:35 are at the heart and soul of what we're building here.
08:38 So why are we doing a Kickstarter?
08:40 We felt that this was the best way to give the community
08:43 what they were asking for.
08:44 We've received a lot of requests for physical merchandise.
08:47 Also, we've received an overwhelming number of requests
08:50 for how players can get into the beta.
08:53 Online multiplayer testing is really expensive,
08:55 and we haven't made any money to date yet.
08:58 Through Kickstarter, we can expand the beta pool
09:01 and allow more players to get into the game
09:03 while supporting Stormgate.
09:05 One of the great things about Kickstarter
09:08 is it allows us to deliver
09:09 a Stormgate Physical Collector's Edition.
09:12 Vulcan online.
09:14 The Vulcan mech is one of the defining units
09:16 of the Vanguard army,
09:18 and we decided to make the Vulcan mech
09:20 the centerpiece of our Collector's Edition.
09:22 Here, you see a fully painted prototype
09:25 of our six and a half inch Vulcan statue.
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09:30 We're really excited to build Stormgate with you
09:36 and for you, and to have you be a part of this journey
09:39 and help shape the game that we're creating.
09:42 This is the beginning of the next 10 years
09:44 for the RTS genre.
09:46 I want to thank you from the bottom of our hearts
09:48 at Frost Giant for being a part of this process
09:51 and helping to bring this game to life.
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