Stormgate: Celestials Faction Hands-On Preview

Last time we checked in with Stormgate, the new RTS coming from a bunch of former Starcraft developers at Frost Giant Studios, we got to dig deep into the demonic Infernal Host faction, joining the determined Human Vanguard. Now, the third faction has been revealed, and they’re a strong counterpoint both thematically and mechanically. The Celestial Armada consist of angelic artificial forms inhabited by the souls of a hyper-advanced alien race, and they play quite a bit differently from anything we’ve seen in an RTS like this so far.

The first time I loaded into a match as the Celestials, I wasn’t even really sure what I was supposed to be doing. Instead of a main base building, they have a fully mobile Arcship, which can roam around the map freely or land to gain powerful defensive abilities. Their workers, called Prisms, can’t harvest Luminite or build structures. Instead, resource-collecting buildings are created by a unit called a Morph Core. And while Fabricators, which harvest Therium for more advanced units, are stuck there once you build them, Luminite Extractors can just take off and leave.

You will need Prisms to harvest Therium, but Luminite Extractors work fine on their own. Up to three Prisms can be assigned to them to speed up harvesting, though.

All of the other Celestial buildings can be warped in anywhere that has a Cascade Field, which is generated by the Arcship itself and most Celestial ground structures. No builders needed. This really allows the Celestials to move around and set up expansions and proxy bases with a huge degree of freedom. Add in the fact that each unit-producing structure will have one “Prime” variant where all of your units from that type of building will spawn, even if half of the actual production structures are across the map, and you really have a faction that can strike from anywhere at any time if their opponents aren’t vigilant. In fact, one map had to be removed from the competitive pool during the latest beta because Celestials were simply too good on it.

Keeping the Lights On

The biggest wrinkle here is Power, which is consumed by all Celestial structures connected to the Cascade Field, although you can turn certain ones off if you don’t need them. They’re produced at Power Banks, which do leave the Celestials somewhat dependent on a forward position or a fallback point. It’s not only important for powering structures, but for refilling the energy on Celestial units, which isn’t only important for casters with clickable abilities.

Let’s look at the Argent, for example, which is the basic frontline Celestial unit. Their basic attack only does 10 damage normally, which isn’t going to win a lot of battles against an Infernal or Vanguard force of the same relative cost. But when it has energy available, it will upgrade that basic attack to 20 damage at the cost of 10 energy per shot, which is really powerful! So being able to retreat your Argents back to a Power Bank to top up greatly increases your fighting ability. They also have an upgrade later down the tech tree that puts them offline for five seconds and tops up all of their energy, allowing them to operate a bit more independently.

The Celestials also have a versatile scout unit in the form of the Scanner. It has a grounded mode, in which it can move, attack, and cast Tag on another unit to create a moving field of vision around it temporarily. Or you can use its Perch ability on a tree to gain an immobile sentry with stealth and stealth detection.

Roll Out

Shoring up the frontline is the Kri, a purely mechanical unit that represents the un-ensouled machines that the Celestials use as cannon fodder, so as not to risk their own angelic souls when it’s not strictly necessary. They have a really cool upgrade that grants them a rollout ability, reminiscent of the droidekas from Star Wars, that increases their speed and deals damage to the first thing they run into. They also explode upon death, dealing damage in a decent radius.

For vehicles, the Vector is a light attack craft that can blink forward, then quickly recall back to their original position for some effective harassment. The Saber is a much larger, slower, and heavier option with a splash damage attack, which can temporarily boost its speed with a clickable turbo button, or enter a self-repair mode.

The Scythe is the core Celestial air unit, which does more damage the closer it is to its target, can expend energy to create a temporary shield that absorbs damage, and briefly deals even more damage after absorbing damage with this shield. This encourages a very aggressive playstyle, but it’s still a fairly fragile unit overall, so I found I had to temper my eagerness to shove them down the enemy’s windpipe a bit.

Echoes of the Void

The Celestials, of course, have powerful casters as well. The Animancer is able to suck the health and energy out of a sacrificial unit and redistribute it to everyone in an area, making it Stormgate’s first truly communist unit. They can also stealth and increase the movement speed of an entire small strike force, and summon a black hole in the middle of the battlefield, which I don’t think Karl Marx could have even anticipated.

If the Vanguard are reminiscent of the Terran in Starcraft, and the Infernals play somewhat like the Zerg, the Celestials are certainly the most like the Protoss. Starcraft II pro player Won “PartinG” Lee-sak, currently the highest-rated ladder player in Stormgate’s beta, said he decided to make them his main race mainly because he played Protoss previously, and they felt the most similar to him. And despite their angelic appearance, the Armada are still aliens, not beings literally sent from Biblical heaven – though it sounds like they may have come to Earth before the current post-apocalyptic conflict unfolding in Stormgate, and possibly inspired some of humanity’s religious imagery.

Also like the Protoss, they are rather high and mighty, and might not be here just to save us from the Infernal Host. Frost Giant says they want to avoid creating a world where any of the factions are black-and-white, good or evil. So we can expect their interests may not exactly line up with those of the human Vanguard in the end.

You’ll be able to get into Stormgate Early Access and pilot the Celestial Armada yourself on August 13 for free, or July 30 if you pre-order before then.