Tempest Rising

Declaring your game an esport is like giving yourself a nickname: unless the designation comes from elsewhere, it's never likely to catch on.

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Perhaps it was fixating on StarCraft's pro scene, instead of catering to the bigger audience of armchair generals who just wanted to tank-rush their mates, blast through story missions and watch Tim Curry chew scenery, that spelled the RTS genre's downfall over the past two decades. Slipgate Ironworks understands this. Tempest Rising may turn out to have the fine balance and depth to sustain a pro-aspiring community, but the campy cutscenes and rollicking campaigns are placed at the front of the shop window.

Is it a retro revival piece? Not entirely. That's despite the fact that it's riddled with references to Command & Conquer, from the industrial soundtrack and pixellated loading screens to the design and naming of its factions, the GDF (pompous western types) and Tempest Dynasty (Soviet-influenced experimental-weapon enthusiasts). Then there's the fact that the story begins in 1997, the year of Red Alert's release and the RTS genre's zenith. But this isn't an attempt to fool you into thinking you're playing something that could have been made then - it's running in Unreal Engine, for starters. It's also trying to build systemic depth that wasn't there in the Westwood games. It's more like how a Command & Conquer game would play in 2025 if the series had kept its cultural relevance and new titles had continued to be released.

Which is ironic, because while