Review: Iron Harvest shows glimpses of RTS greatness but needs work
Iron Harvest, developed by KING Art Games and published by Deep Silver, has arrived in all its steaming mechanical glory for a 1.0 release after years of work. This real-time strategy (RTS) game blends alternate post-WWI history with tactical gameplay, all set in a world created by artist Jakub Różalski. This “1920+” timeline is compelling, offering up unique characters and heroes as they live in a war-filled reality dominated by enormous mechs that make short work of the infantry of this era. I previewed Iron Harvest almost six months ago, noting that there was still some work to be done. Does it live up to the hype now that it’s been fully released?
Alt-History Epic RTS
Iron Harvest
Pros
- Lengthy story-driven campaign
- Inspired artwork and models
- Skirmishes are quick fun
- Pleasant graphics
- Stellar map design
Cons
- Unit pathfinding and movement issues
- Odd AI behavior at times
- Price is steep despite missing content
- Some bugs and performance woes
What’s it like to play Iron Harvest?
Category | Spec |
---|---|
Developer | KING Art Games |
Publisher | Deep Silver |
Genre | Real-time strategy |
Rating | Mature |
Platform | Windows 10 |
Recommended | 8th Gen Intel Core i7 (or AMD equivalent) 16GB RAM NVIDIA RTX 2060 (or AMD equivalent) |
When you’re not playing the campaign’s preset missions (which have their own share of base building and resource capturing), singleplayer and multiplayer skirmishes have a strong focus on map control and victory point acquisition. Tactical play is far more important than a booming economy and en-masse unit production. It’s a big difference from something like my personal RTS favorite, Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition, and that’s OK. You still need to protect iron and oil mines that you’ve built up, which often isn’t as easy as it seems if your army is mostly made up of slow mechs chasing down fast infantry.
If you’re a fan of Company of Heroes and its sequels, Iron Harvest is going to immediately feel familiar.
There are three main buildings that engineers can construct; Headquarters, Workshop, and Barracks. These pump out heroes, infantry, weapon systems, and mechs, and they can be upgraded to allow access to stronger units. Each team has a standard set of riflemen, explosive gunners, machine gunners, grenadiers, flamethrowers, medics, and engineers (some with slightly different names depending on faction). Deployable mortars, field cannons, and heavy MGs can be built or stolen from the enemy, and any heroes downed in battles can be revived.
Iron Harvest tells a compelling story
Source: Windows Central
The majority of these missions are well planned and have good pacing, with a bit of variety to keep everything from devolving into rock’em sock’em robots. However, some missions do get bogged down in the middle. You’ll have 15 minutes of intense fighting, 45 minutes of defending a makeshift base while you attempt to build up enough army to take on the enemy, then another 15 minutes of intense action to finish things off. I understand the push for epic storytelling over time is tough to keep balanced in an RTS, but it’s sometimes easy to get lost mid-mission. It’s especially frustrating when you’ve hit a population cap and can’t quite break the enemy’s defenses to finish up the mission.
The best part of Iron Harvest is its three interwoven campaigns.
While you start most campaign sections with some meatbag infantry and one or two small mechs, the real action gets going once heavy metal is fully introduced. Mechs are probably the biggest attraction to the game aside from the campaign, and it’s clear the developers spent time fleshing them out (no pun intended). The models are detailed and intricate, with steaming boilers, rusted armor plates, exposed pistons, and parts that fall off in combat. Across factions, the mechs are unique, though they all offer similar functionality. Some are fast-moving but susceptible to damage, while others are slow and built to withstand a ton of firepower. Loud explosions, raging fire, arcing missiles — it’s all very well done and adds a lot of grit to a game that takes on a dark subject. The clash between a small squad of riflemen and something like a Rusviet Serp with its enormous scythes is ghastly. It’s an over-the-top portrayal of the introduction of industrialized warfare during the real-world WWI.
Infantry doesn’t necessarily become useless when mechs are introduced; flanking maneuvers with rocket squads to attack weak points on mechs are worthwhile, and you’ll always want engineers tailing your mechs to make repairs. However, the whole tactical aspect that’s favored when dealing only with infantry seems to be far less important when you’ve got four or five heavy-hitting mechs on your side, each taking on an equally large mech on the enemy’s side. This is often true in the campaign, but it’s especially apparent in skirmish mode.
What do after Iron Harvest‘s campaign
Any great RTS game will have a strong campaign, but most of the time, that’s only half or even a third of the content. Long-time RTS players will tell you that skirmishes, whether singleplayer or multiplayer (with co-op), are what most people stick around for. A game needs plenty of varying maps with smart design, and a game needs ranked multiplayer with efficient matchmaking. Iron Harvest gets some of this right.
The game has just six skirmish maps with a few more on the way, achievements are currently disabled, and ranked multiplayer play is coming soon as outlined in the road map. Co-op is also coming soon for the campaign. Yes, a game released in full, costing $50 (a whopping $69 in Canada), has a five-week roadmap for upcoming content. That’s a disappointment, but at least it seems the developers are committed to bolstering the game with more maps and playstyles.
Source: Windows Central
To begin a skirmish, each player chooses a faction, a main hero, and some reserves that can be deployed throughout the game. There’s a point system in play to keep players from simply choosing all the most powerful units as reserves. You build your base, capture resources, and victory points, and chase the enemy around as they do the same. Victory point and population limit can be configured depending on how long you want the game to go on. There are also three-wave missions available, one for each faction. You’re tasked with defending a strategic position, racking up points as you go in order to gain better medals.
Iron Harvest has a long way to go
Source: Windows Central
Iron Harvest needs significant work if it wants to stand out in the competitive RTS space.
In a game where your primary objective is to command your myriad units as quickly as possible, having it feel like they’re moving through water only to end up not where you despatched them is infuriating. Your units might take cover on the other side of a wall (directly in sight of the enemy), or they might just run directly into the enemy and attack them with melee weapons. Other times you’ll queue up commands only to return to the units standing in the open doing nothing (or taking fire). Want a mech to get to the fight ASAP? It might walk through some buildings, or it might take the long way around for seemingly no reason. The game often feels clunky. If you’re used to RTS games where your commands are immediately obeyed, this will feel odd and will take time to get used to.
On the other side of things, AI is often wonky. A few times, I found that I could simply shell enemy squads into oblivion without them reacting, or I could just bait enemies into a trap over and over. Other times AI units were stuck running in place, completely susceptible to damage but still showing up on my minimap. How many times did I click back to that part of the map, thinking I was being flanked? And if you’re playing against AI in skirmishes, you’ll watch them run all over the map securing positions and running off to the next one. In a lot of games, I found that we were chasing each other around the map, my heavy, slow-moving mechs completely out of position while my fast-moving infantry and armor did most of the work.
And then there are some minor annoyances, like control groups not being selectable once they’re garrisoned in a building. You have to find them on the map, click their tag, and eject them from the building instead of just hitting, say, “2” on the keyboard to quick-select them as a control group. It’s a shame that these bugs are apparent because they seriously detract from the otherwise excellent game that KING Art has crafted here. AI can be tweaked, and I hope it’s done sooner than later for the people who prefer playing offline.
Finally, performance on my PC with a Ryzen 5 2600 processor, NVIDIA RTX 2070 Super GPU (which is one of our picks for best graphics card), and 16GB of RAM was all over the place. In some campaign missions, the frame rate fell down to just 25 FPS with settings on High, whereas other times (in less frenetic games), it hit upwards of 80 FPS. The game is gorgeous with overflowing detail, but the choppiness at that frame rate is tough to contend with when you’re going for as many clicks-per-minute as possible.
Should you buy Iron Harvest?
Source: Windows Central
KING Art is committed to adding more content, and one day I hope to see an Iron Harvest that’s much closer to completion than it is now. If you’re searching for a great campaign, don’t mind dealing with some bugs, and want to help the developers reach their eventual goal, it should be a worthwhile investment. However, for those who prefer a competitive RTS overflowing with post-campaign content, it’s best to wait a while to see what comes, especially at the asking price.
Alt-History Epic RTS
Iron Harvest
It’s going to be great … eventually
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