While I like the comparative groundedness of Tiberian Dawn, Command and Conquer 2 could be the best-looking game in the entire Westwood series. The bright, bold colors. The laser weapons. The mechs. Red Alert 2 also leaps off the screen, but Tiberian Sun finds this gorgeous middle ground between grim post-apocalyptica and C&C’s trademark high sci-fi. It’s a good time for RTS games right now. Tempest Rising is a worthy successor to the genre’s greatest classics and Age of Empires 2 just got a new expansion. But Fractured Alliance, from Tense Games, feels like the closest in spirit to the true old-school, and now we have details on its third faction.
In Fractured Alliance, the Cold War never ended and the entire planet has been consumed by the war between the United Federation and the Eastern Alliance. As well as expected units like infantry and tanks, you also have stealth bombers, bipedal, Titan-esque mechs, and superweapons – you can build devices to control the weather and use technology to steer comets and asteroids onto the enemy’s position. The goal, Tense says, is to “nail the classic vibe” of RTS games. That means a great soundtrack, gratifying base building, and large-scale battles across diverse maps.
But while it’s partly designed for genre veterans, Fractured Alliance also wants to welcome players who are new to RTS games. That’s where the third playable faction, The Collective, comes in. Inspired by the Tau from Warhammer 40k, The Collective is futuristic and built around automation.
Let’s say you’re relatively fresh to real-time strategy games. If you play as The Collective, you can choose for your refineries to seek out and collect ore patches on their own, with no need for micromanagement. The Collective’s drone factories will automatically produce combat units that separate themselves into groups, self-assess their combat strength, and launch spontaneous attacks on the enemy when they decide that they’re ready.
You can also build repair plants that will automatically fix your structures if they become damaged, so you don’t have to monitor the condition of your base too closely. However, The Collective also has a number of units that are manually controlled. It means that as RTS newcomers become more comfortable with Fractured Alliance’s gameplay, they can gradually take over further mechanics.
Although there’s no release date yet, Fractured Alliance has already hit nearly 27,000 Steam wishlists. If you want to add it to your own, just head here.
Otherwise, you might want to try some of the best grand strategy games, or maybe the best 4X games on PC.
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