Age of Darkness: Final Stand is out tomorrow (7th Oct) on Steam Early Access but I’ve been lucky enough to have been playing it for a while now. Even though I may have the advantage of playing it early in terms of gitiing gud I can honestly say that I am still far from gud as this is a brutally challenging game. Although I keep failing there is something here that makes me want to go back for more punishment time and time again.
Age of Darkness: Final Stand is a mixture of base building, resource management and real-time strategy combat. Things start off pretty basic as you place down lumber yards, stone mines food huts etc in order to build up your resources. These can be spent on building walls, towers, troops and so on. So far so normal right? The main difference here is that the clock is always ticking.
Check out my own gameplay video below:
Every evening you will be attacked by the enemy forces, though not in any great numbers. After your third day (on normal difficulty) you will encounter your first Death Night. On this night you will be attacked by a swarm of enemies whose only desire is to wipe you off the map. If you manage to survive the first wave your only reward is to repair and upgrade your mase and get ready for the next, bigger Death Night.
The first wave is ‘only’ 150 strong and if you’re lucky you’ll survive. Wave two was closer to a thousand and I got my arse handed to me. On easy mode, I’ve managed to make it to wave three but still lost. I can only imagine what the numbers are like later in the game, I am shaking in my boots just thinking about it as Age of Darkness: Final stand uses an internally developed technology called ‘SwarmTech’ that allows the game to render over 70,000 enemy units on the screen at one time.
I’m really looking forward to seeing how this game develops over time and will be sure to keep you posted when any updates arrive.
