Eyes of War Review (PC) – Eyes Wide Shut

When we think of real-time strategy titans, the likes of Age of Empires, Total War and Crusader Kings comes to mind. While each allows some level of controlling individual units amongst the masses of armies, none of them allow you to embody a single soldier within that force, and actively take part in the battle you’re otherwise commanding. Eyes of War is an indie RTS title with that exact vision – to be both the God of the army and a simple soldier carving through the enemy vanguard yourself.

I’ve played a few RTS titles in my time, and I’ve often wondered myself about the possibility of combining overlord RTS gameplay with a classic third-person action title. Perhaps Eyes of War unfortunately demonstrates why this has been nothing but a pipe dream for so long.

Feast Your Eyes… On Nothing

I’m just going to come right out and say that I struggled to like even a modicum of my time spent playing Eyes of War. If the recent Stronghold: Definitive Edition is my impregnable fortress, this game is my peasant hovel. The concept is something I genuinely believe could be successful in future, but the execution of it in this effort is about as smooth as a guillotine using a rusted garden hacksaw.

There’s no campaign nor story on offer, with three modes available to try. Strategy is a traditional RTS skirmish mode – up to 4 players or AI build up a castle, resources and then attempt to do the dance of swords. Arena is a 1 vs 1 or 2 vs 2 duel, while Battle mode allows you to select a host of troops and then just launch them at each other until one side has no one left standing.

To call it lacking in real content substance would be like describing a single apple slice as a not-very-ideal meal for a feast. Duels last less than the time it takes to make a cup of tea, while the Battle mode barely works after a certain threshold of unit numbers (which is not high), thanks to the cratering framerate problems. There’s also so little strategy, it boils down to just seeing clusters of poorly animated sprites sort of walking into each other as opposed to looking like a bombastic warfare spectacle.

Having said all of that, of the three modes, I probably “liked” Arena the most, simply because it’s the least frustrating to play. Pick up a character, run at the opposing one, hit the left mouse key until you win. Sorted. Plus, there’s a samurai unit type in there, and samurai are always cool.

Real-Time Sadness

So what about the main mode of Strategy? As I mentioned before, these play out like traditional skirmishes. You start with a castle, there are seven building options (3 for resources, 4 for military) and you can erect castle walls, with stairs, a gate and a couple of tower options. That is, quite literally, the extent of the castle building. Everything is produced using stone, wood or gold taken from the resources around your base.

Not only is the base building extremely rudimentary – it doesn’t even really work. Archers or crossbowmen can be placed on walls, except their pathfinding will get them inexplicably stuck on the staircases. Manning the walls doesn’t provide a line of sight bonus, so the opposing faction can just pepper you at range with siege weapons and there’s nothing you can do. In fact, line of sight and fog of war handling in this game is quite frankly atrocious across the board.

Once you do build up some resources, you can start producing units, at a very slow rate. By the time you have a semi-decent force, the AI will have already developed an entire castle and have sent 3 armies after you. Don’t be deterred, however, as while the AI can generate numbers, it cannot generate intelligence. You can kite opposing forces, mess with their pathfinding easily, and often battles just descend into mindless nothing. There’s no actual strategy at all – you both produce units and throw them at each other until it’s finally over.

A Real Eyesore

To its credit, Eyes of War has four factions, each with unique strengths. My favourite (relatively speaking), was the cavalry-heavy clan who can use plenty of mobility to get about the map. Sure, the interface is terribly clunky and controlling your units feels akin to a steel-clad knight battling in a muddy swamp, but the differing properties of the factions are at least somewhat interesting.

So too is the idea you can assume direct control over any of your individual troops. Hitting E shifts you into a third-person camera of that unit, where you can attack, block and run. I doubt I need to explain that while technically functional, this combat system is more of a gimmick, than a system. It works, it’s a nice idea, but there’s no depth whatsoever to the fighting mechanics to make it worth discussing.

All of this is further compounded by how unappealing Eyes of War is visually. The maps, though diverse in settings, are largely empty and drab. Combat encounters struggle to emulate the chaotic maelstrom of a real battle, while buildings are mostly texture-less blocks with little flair. This is an indie game that’s been in Early Access for a couple of years, granted, but it still looks, sounds and plays like an early Alpha build of a concept demo, instead of a fully released product.

Started A War It Can’t Finish

Which largely sums up my overall impression of the game – it’s an unfinished product based on a novel and interesting core concept. The idea of being able to generate a huge force of soldiers, march them to an enemy capital before taking on the role of a swordsman charging the front line you’ve assembled, is inherently exciting. That all falls apart when getting the army together is tedious, the opponent has a distinct lack of brain matter, and controlling any of the soldiers feels like a poor imitation of any other third-person action game.

Perhaps Eyes of War needs another 2-3 years to properly realise its vision. Iron out the numerous kinks, re-balance the AI scaling, add in some extra mechanics, that sort of thing. As I said earlier, I genuinely do appreciate the concept behind the effort, but even within an hour of playing, I felt like I’d seen and suffered as much as the game had to offer.

Stronghold: Definitive Edition costs the same amount as Eyes of War, and while that may be an unfair comparison in some ways, it’s the reality of the market this RTS-action hybrid is in. Consequently, I can’t recommend anyone but the most die-hard RTS fans try this, and even then, it’s an exceptionally hard sell in its current state. Should the game receive regular updates and improvements, I’d love to see where it ends up in a couple of years’ time, but right now, Eyes of War simply isn’t ready for this siege.

Eyes of War is available now on PC via Steam (review platform).

Developer: Good Mood Games
Publisher: Good Mood Games

Disclaimer: In order to complete this review, we were provided with a promotional copy of the game. For our full review policy, please go here.

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