A YEAR OF RAIN Preview for Steam Early Access

I never played Warcraft III or any of the other early medieval-fantasy point and click RTS’s as a kid, but I was assured by my friends who did that A Year of Rain is aiming for the nostalgia meter attached to those games. Created by Daedalic Entertainment (Intruders: Hide and Seek, Felix The Reaper, Shadow Tactics), this represents their first foray into strategy games. For this reviewer, whose RTS experience is limited to Starcraft II, I had to take their words, but it did feel familiar. From the gameplay I’ve seen, and the worlds overall feel – elves, gnomes, humans, monsters, all embroiled in a conflict for land and resources – the comparison is fair. Unlike Warcraft III, which has a rich, layered storyline with multiple compelling characters and nuanced and interesting factions, A Year Of Rain has – well, not that! There are three multiplayer races – humans, gnolls, and undead. The campaign is a well-voiced acted but sloppy pastiche of fantasy tropes (whose side are the elves on? Do humans and the scale people work together? 

Gameplay wise, like any RTS, you start off with a base and worker units that you use to construct buildings and harvest resources. For the first few campaign missions, you don’t start off with a base, and instead need to capture or attain one after fighting enemies. The campaign, which I played on co-op with a RTS veteran friend, was fun but frustrating – if a hero dies, the mission immediately ends, and there’s no way to revive heroes and very few healing options with which to keep them alive, meaning that careful micromanagement is required, especially when there’s a predominance of enemy ranged troops. With that said, heroes were customizable – they each have three different abilities to choose from, each of which can be leveled up three times, though the abilities all can’t be maxed out, forcing the characters down certain archetypal paths – tank, utility, dps, etc.

While the campaign had decent voice acting, interesting maps, and a serviceable story, the heart of any RTS lies in its multiplayer. The game itself puts most matches into a 2v2 scenario (mirroring the campaign, where the 2nd player is an AI), and here, class selection for the hero is more important – you and your ally must choose separate roles. What follows is fun, frenetic, fast pace 2v2 action that – when your team mate actually cooperates with you – is a delight.  While there were some things that I felt were missing from the game, like the ability to create unit groupings, the relatively small focus of the game’s army builder – you’re capped at around 80 units – meant that there were very few times when I left units behind, or felt overwhelmed by the demands of micromanagement. 

As a relative newcomer to the RTS field, A Year Of Rain was surprisingly decent, co-op campaign frustrations aside. It kept me coming back to the multi-player even if I didn’t win all that often. A solidly enjoyable game!

Check Out the A Year Of Rain Trailer:

A Year of Rain is available for PC via Steam Early Access. For more information, please visit: https://www.ayearofrain.com