Well known gaming industry figure Peter Molyneux has launched his latest game via Steam Early Access. Godus Wars might sound familiar as it follows the God(us) game strand started by Molyneux and studio 22Cans of Kickstarter fame. Godus Wars is said to mix together the god game and RTS game genres and is priced at £10.99 ($15.99), or is free for previous Godus Kickstarter backers and owners.
In the game you take control of one of four Deities, which seem to equate to the usual RTS combatant races, nations, clans or so on. The Deities have distinct abilities and powers conducive to different styles of gameplay and strategic use. Armies that you can create can consist of up to 50 different unit types such as archers and catapults. Adding to the variation on offer in the game, Godus Wars boasts seven varied continents with "hundreds of uniquely designed and modifiable levels". The terrains/maps can change as you play as all the land is deformable, impacted by combat and so on.
If the combination of the above isn't attractive enough there are over 20 different Power Cards which provide you, as a player, plenty of variations of powers to deploy in battle to wrest and advantage. There are a further eight god powers to throw into the mix.
Peter Molyneux yesterday talked to MCV about the new Godus Wars Steam Early Access game. He explained that rather than integrate this 'wars' element into the existing Godus game, making a spinoff helped the team focus on the out-and-out brutal fighting combined with god powers and brought with it the necessary game progression speed (20 minutes required to rage in the heat of a battle rather than building up for two or even 10 hours).
"What we've ended up with is a true mix of a god game and a RTS with the ability to build your own deck of powers and buffs," Molyneux told MCV. "We've got all sorts of surprises in the game. Try playing around with the globe. See what happens. We really wanted to make this brutal, we wanted to make it funny and we wanted to make it exciting. I feel we've really done that and I can't wait to see what the community thinks."
I've just had a look at what the community thinks on Steam and it isn't very positive. The messages left by Steam members are largely negative but seem to be tainted by the previous Godus PC episode rather than focussing on the new offering. Whether that is fair or not, and whether the new game has merit, depends upon your games industry and personal perspectives.
