Turtles are at the core of my being. In the best RTS games, this is the kind of player who prefers to hide behind a big stone wall and let archers and guard towers do the work for them. Setting up a city and watching waves of enemy soldiers dash against my defenses gives me great satisfaction. It seems like Thronefall, a strategy game focused on tower defense while still giving me enough control to feel ‘real-time,’ might be my new favorite.
Any medieval strategy game will teach you that as a leader, it’s your job to build your kingdom up to prosperity, and then defend it from those who would take it away. You’ll spend the first few minutes of each campaign setting up houses and mills to generate income, while guard towers will prevent enemies from getting too close.
The threats you face increase as your civilization develops – with city walls, rolling fields, and barracks for training soldiers. Thronefall puts a two-pronged spin on things; first, enemies only come in waves, and only at night, so you can plan for them. You might be able to focus on economy for a turn if it’s a weak force. You can move your soldiers away from the East if they are coming from the West.
Second, Thronefall takes away much of your decision-making ability. The downside of that is that it turns each fight into a puzzle-solving activity, rather than a contest decided by brute force. Buildings can be placed at specific spots in your kingdom, and more sites become available as you upgrade your central castle, which must be defended at all costs. The more houses and mills you build and upgrade, the more money you get to strengthen your city walls or build ballista-firing guard towers.
It’s a system with surprising depth. My strategy on some maps has been to build impenetrable blockades by using a steadily increasing pot of money. On other occasions, I’ve had to use my King as bait to lure enemy soldiers away from valuable areas. Finding the right place to use every single piece of gold can make the difference between success and failure. The cost of a close-fought victory will feel slightly less pyrrhic with every wave, but you’ll lose income and progress when buildings are destroyed.
An actual (good) time
Thronefall’s other twist is the ability to rebound from defeat. As a result of the tightly-bound puzzle format, there are only a few maps to complete; instead of conquering a sprawling empire, the goal is to perfect your protection of a more tightly-knit kingdom. You can wade into the front lines with different weapons or fire from afar to kite enemies more effectively. Depending on your perks, you may be able to take a more economical approach, or turtle behind walls and towers that deal bonus damage. If you can overcome all of the mutations, you will earn a lot more experience points.
With every run, Thronefall unlocks new perks, giving it a level of replayability belied by its minimalist map provisions. The more points you earn, the more unlockable features you will be able to unlock, and a leaderboard system will allow you to compete against yourself and your friends.
In my opinion, Thronefall has quickly become the most dynamic and entertaining example of either genre that I’ve played in a long time. That’s not to discredit games like Age of Empires 4, but rather to highlight the success that can be found at the boundaries of the strategy genre. It reminds me of games such as Bad North and They Are Billions, which arose out of a relative lack of big-budget real-time strategy games in the 2010s, but focused on particular ideas rather than emulating the whole genre. It’s the impressive depth you find below the surface that keeps me returning to those games, just as with Thronefall.
Early Access is now available for Thronefall on PC via Steam.
