Stormgate early access review: this StarCraft wannabe brims with potential, but makes a poor first impression

Drizzled veteran

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Frost Giant Studios

• Developer: Frost Giant Studios
• Publisher: Frost Giant Studios
• Release: Out now
• On: Windows
• From: Steam
• Price: Free
• Reviewed on: AMD Ryzen 5 3600, Nvidia RTX 2080 Super, 32GB RAM, Windows 10

Stormgate is a confusing proposition. It’s an RTS directed by former Blizzard developers that is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike StarCraft . It’s a free-to-play game , but has a business model that makes you feel like you’re getting a rougher deal than if you just dropped thirty notes for it outright. It’s available now in Early Access, but has already been available in a kind of gravity-defying Super Early Access for several weeks (which you had to pay to get into).

All of which has made me feel very tired, and yearn for the days when you went into a shop and bought a game in a box for a set amount of money, and the whole game was in the box and you went home and put it on your PC and played it until your mum said “Richard!” (only my mum calls me Richard) “get off that computer and go outside and get some exercise! Do you want to be dead at 35?” Well, I’m 36 now mum. Nearly 37. So who’s laughing through their heart palpitations now?

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Frost Giant Studios

Ahem. The most confusing thing about Stormgate, however, is that there’s a potentially interesting strategy game here. Unfortunately, it puts its most boring foot forward first, with its intriguing trio of factions buried beneath a crust of focus-test approved blandness, and a campaign that has barely shown you anything good before it asks you to get your wallet out.

The basic premise of Stormgate is this: imagine if StarCraft fell in love with WarCraft , and together they gave birth to an army of baby demons that all came pouring out of… actually don’t imagine that bit. It’s a slick and snazzy RTS governed by the rule of threes, with three very different factions to play as, and three different ways to play as them.

Unfortunately, the first way is, currently, the worst way. Headlining Stormgate is a six-mission single player campaign that puts you in control of the Vanguard: Stormgate’s technologically advanced human faction, as they fight a war against the Infernals, Stormgate’s demon faction. Its story revolves a hardnosed female soldier called Amara, whose father was present during the initial Infernal invasion, as she attempts to rally the Vanguard against the machinations of an Infernal called Maloc.

The narrative is distinctly Blizzard in its approach, from the flashy opening cutscene with expensive-looking CG animation, to the cursed sword Amara obtains early in the story that definitely isn’t going to corrupt her in some way. The trouble is none of it is particularly compelling. Amara has all the charisma of a Star Wars prequel Jedi, while the demons are all pantomime villains from the Clive Barker amateur dramatics society. It should be noted that developer Frost Giant has stated that some VO and animations are placeholder, but I’m not sure that fresh vocal talent would change the fact that Amara is terrible company.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Frost Giant Studios

This dull wrapper contains some passable but unremarkable RTS missions. The freely available prologue has one character-focused mission that has you complete a level with a limited set of units, and two missions that involved building a base to conquer one or several enemy bases. All of which is fine, but nothing I haven’t seen in a thousand RTS’ before.

Moreover, right now, everything I like about Stormgate has a big jiggly “but” attached to it. Base construction, for example, is slick and satisfying, with pleasing animations for assembling structures. Yet once built, I find the different buildings hard to parse visually, meaning I tend to forget which structure is which. Combat is flashy but lacks heft, especially when larger units duke it out. I like the quick menu that lets you issue construction and recruitment orders, but I don’t how selecting units and confirming orders are not universally bound to either mouse button. Left click should ALWAYS select units, Frost Giant, while right click should ALWAYS issue orders, even if you’re deploying a special ability, or confirming a building construction. Anything else is heresy. I have spoken.

By the third mission, which has you build and defend a base against three demon bases, I was just about getting to grips with Stormgate, although I was yet to properly enjoy it. This is the point where Stormgate said “right, you’ve had enough freebies, bucko, time to pony up.” To play the remaining three missions of the campaign costs nine pounds. Had the previous three missions been rip-roaring entertainment, I might have been tempted. But they weren’t, so I wasn’t.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Frost Giant Studios

Instead, I went over to the game’s solo multiplayer and skirmish mode to have a look at the other two factions. It was here I discovered Stormgate at its most interesting. While the Vanguard may be a bit dull, the other two factions, the Infernals and the Celestials, are anything but.

Of the two, the Infernals are my favourite faction. Frost Giant has clearly thought hard about how to make them feel properly demonic. For starters, they don’t build structures, they sacrifice meat to literally raise them from hell. Each building you “construct” opens a yawning fissure in the ground from which your structure eventually rises. Likewise, you don’t really “recruit” units. Each unit type automatically generates a charges over time. Once a single charge is full, you can summon that unit instantly onto the battlefield. This means you can put together armies really quickly and rush them toward enemies for a nasty surprise.

Playing as the Infernals brings back fond memories of being a horrible little git to fantasy heroes in Dungeon Keeper . It’s a feeling that’s enhanced by the creative demon types. Even your basic demon, the Brute, has a nasty trick whereby it can sacrifice itself to split into two smaller, AI controlled demons.

The remaining faction, the Celestials, are less immediately engaging than the Infernals, but are arguably more intriguing because of how weird they are. Imagine if a bunch of Lord of the Rings elves got really into new age crystal bullshit and then started building aircraft, and you’ve got a vague idea of what the Celestials are like. Their worker units are literal blue prisms that absorb energy from resource sites, while buildings are constructed via biblically accurate angel units that morph into a selected structure on command. They’re slower to put together an army than the Infernals, with a heavy emphasis on aerial units. But if you can get those aerial units off the ground, the Celestials are very tricky to counter unless you’re adequately prepared.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Frost Giant Studios

I should stress that this is a very, very basic introduction to these factions. Most units have special abilities that can be activated on command, while both the Infernals and the Celestials can trigger factionwide by accruing a bespoke, tertiary resource. In the Infernals case, you amassing ritual power by killing enemies, while the Celestials harvest energy from placing certain building types. Maps also have a wide range of control points that themselves provide bonuses, encouraging you to build satellite bases alongside your main headquarters.

In short, there’s a tonne of strategic nuance to how these factions have been built, which makes it all the more of a shame that Stormgate’s mechanical diversity is obscured by the game’s painfully post- Overwatch art style. Full disclosure, I never liked this semi-stylised approach to art design to begin with, and I’m even less enthused by it now it’s been adopted by every developer making a big-budget multiplayer game that wants me to care about its characters without actually putting in any narrative groundwork. Nonetheless, I really don’t think it works in a strategy game about demonic aliens tearing through reality to grab humankind by the lungs. I want Stormgate to be grittier, grimier, weightier, more impactful, not presented with all the gravitas of a Saturday morning cartoon.

At present, Stormgate is a potentially good game that makes a poor first impression. Six missions, only three of which are playable for free, makes neither a good campaign nor a good deal, while the game’s most interesting factions are hidden away in the multiplayer, where you need to do a lot of on-the-spot learning to get the most out of them. All that said, I don’t think it’s a game anybody should write off. Behind its blandifying art style is a very tactically chewy strategy game. If you’re a fan of the genre and have friends who are likewise, there’s good fun to be had in its 1v1 multiplayer, which I should stress costs nothing to try out.

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Stormgate

Video Game

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All 75 Arc Raiders Blueprints and where to get them

These areas have the highest chance of giving you Blueprints

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Looking for more Arc Raiders Blueprints? It’s a special day when you find a Blueprint, as they’re among the most valuable items in Arc Raiders. If you find a Blueprint that you haven’t already found, then you must make sure you hold onto it at all costs, because Blueprints are the key to one of the most important and powerful systems of meta-progression in the game.

This guide aims to be the very best guide on Blueprints you can find, starting with a primer on what exactly they are and how they work in Arc Raiders, before delving into exactly where to get Blueprints and the very best farming spots for you to take in your search.

We’ll also go over how to get Blueprints from other unlikely activities, such as destroying Surveyors and completing specific quests. And you’ll also find the full list of all 75 Blueprints in Arc Raiders on this page (including the newest Blueprints added with the Cold Snap update , such as the Deadline Blueprint and Firework Box Blueprint), giving you all the information you need to expand your own crafting repertoire.

In this guide:

• What are Blueprints in Arc Raiders?
• Full Blueprint list: All crafting recipes
• Where to find Blueprints in Arc Raiders Blueprints obtained from quests Blueprints obtained from Trials Best Blueprint farming locations

What are Blueprints in Arc Raiders?

Blueprints in Arc Raiders are special items which, if you manage to extract with them, you can expend to permanently unlock a new crafting recipe in your Workshop. If you manage to extract from a raid with an Anvil Blueprint, for example, you can unlock the ability to craft your very own Anvil Pistol, as many times as you like (as long as you have the crafting materials).

To use a Blueprint, simply open your Inventory while in the lobby, then right-click on the Blueprint and click “Learn And Consume” . This will permanently unlock the recipe for that item in your Workshop. As of the Stella Montis update, there are allegedly 75 different Blueprints to unlock - although only 68 are confirmed to be in the game so far. You can see all the Blueprints you’ve found and unlocked by going to the Workshop menu, and hitting “R” to bring up the Blueprint screen.

It’s possible to find duplicates of past Blueprints you’ve already unlocked. If you find these, then you can either sell them, or - if you like to play with friends - you can take it into a match and gift it to your friend so they can unlock that recipe for themselves. Another option is to keep hold of them until the time comes to donate them to the Expedition.

Full Blueprint list: All crafting recipes

Below is the full list of all the Blueprints that are currently available to find in Arc Raiders, and the crafting recipe required for each item:

Note: The missing Blueprints in this list likely have not actually been added to the game at the time of writing, because none of the playerbase has managed to find any of them. As they are added to the game, I will update this page with the most relevant information so you know exactly how to get all 75 Arc Raiders Blueprints.

Where to find Blueprints in Arc Raiders

Below is a list of all containers, modifiers, and events which maximise your chances of finding Blueprints:

• Certain quests reward you with specific Blueprints .
• Completing Trials has a high chance of offering Blueprints as rewards.
• Surveyors have a decent chance of dropping Blueprints on death.
• High loot value areas tend to have a greater chance of spawning Blueprints.
• Night Raids and Storms may increase rare Blueprint spawn chances in containers.
• Containers with higher numbers of items may have a higher tendency to spawn Blueprints. As a result, Blue Gate (which has many “large” containers containing multiple items) may give you a higher chance of spawning Blueprints.
• Raider containers (Raider Caches, Weapon Boxes, Medical Bags, Grenade Tubes) have increased Blueprint drop rates. As a result, the Uncovered Caches event gives you a high chance of finding Blueprints.
• Security Lockers have a higher than average chance of containing Blueprints.
• Certain Blueprints only seem to spawn under specific circumstances: Tempest Blueprint only spawns during Night Raid events. Vulcano Blueprint only spawns during Hidden Bunker events. Jupiter and Equaliser Blueprints only spawn during Harvester events.

Raider Caches, Weapon Boxes, and other raider-oriented container types have a good chance of offering Blueprints. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blueprints have a very low chance of spawning in any container in Arc Raiders, around 1-2% on average. However, there is a higher chance of finding Blueprints in particular container types. Specifically, you can find more Blueprints in Raider containers and security lockers.

Beyond this, if you’re looking for Blueprints you should focus on regions of the map which are marked as having particularly high-value loot. Areas such as the Control Tower in Dam Battlegrounds, the Arrival and Departure Buildings in Spaceport, and Pilgrim’s Peak in Blue Gate all have a better-than-average chance of spawning Blueprints somewhere amongst all their containers. Night Raids and Electromagnetic Storm events also increase the drop chances of certain Blueprints .

In addition to these containers, you can often loot Blueprints from destroyed Surveyors - the largest of the rolling ball ARC. Surveyors are more commonly found on the later maps - Spaceport and Blue Gate - and if one spawns in your match, you’ll likely see it by the blue laser beam that it casts into the sky while “surveying”.

Surveyors are quite well-armoured and will very speedily run away from you once it notices you, but if you can take one down then make sure you loot all its parts for a chance of obtaining certain unusual Blueprints.

Blueprints obtained from quests

One way in which you can get Blueprints is by completing certain quests for the vendors in Speranza. Some quests will reward you with a specific item Blueprint upon completion, so as long as you work through all the quests in Arc Raiders, you are guaranteed those Blueprints.

Here is the full list of all Blueprints you can get from quest rewards:

• Trigger Nade Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Sparks Fly”.
• Lure Grenade Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Greasing Her Palms”.
• Burletta Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Industrial Espionage”.
• Hullcracker Blueprint (and Launcher Ammo Blueprint): Rewarded after completing “The Major’s Footlocker”.

Alas, that’s only 4 Blueprints out of a total of 75 to unlock, so for the vast majority you will need to find them yourself during a raid. If you’re intent on farming Blueprints, then it’s best to equip yourself with cheap gear in case you lose it, but don’t use a free loadout because then you won’t get a safe pocket to stash any new Blueprint you find. No pain in Arc Raiders is sharper than failing to extract with a new Blueprint you’ve been after for a dozen hours already.

One of the best ways to get Blueprints is by hitting three stars on all five Trials every week. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blueprints obtained from Trials

One of the very best ways to get Blueprints is as rewards for completing Trials in Arc Raiders. Trials are unlocked from Level 15 onwards, and allow you to earn rewards by focusing on certain tasks over the course of several raids. For example, one Trial might task you with dealing damage to Hornets, while another might challenge you to loot Supply Drops.

Trials refresh on a weekly basis, with a new week bringing five new Trials. Each Trial can offer up to three rewards after passing certain score milestones, and it’s possible to receive very high level loot from these reward crates - including Blueprints. So if you want to unlock as many Blueprints as possible, you should make a point of completing as many Trials as possible each week.

Best Blueprint farming locations

The very best way to get Blueprints is to frequent specific areas of the maps which combine high-tier loot pools with the right types of containers to search. Here are my recommendations for where to find Blueprints on every map, so you can always keep the search going for new crafting recipes to unlock.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Dam Battlegrounds

The best places to farm Blueprints on Dam Battlegrounds are the Control Tower, Power Generation Complex, Ruby Residence, and Pale Apartments . The first two regions, despite only being marked on the map as mid-tier loot, contain a phenomenal number of containers to loot. The Control Tower can also contain a couple of high-tier Security Lockers - though of course, you’ll need to have unlocked the Security Breach skill at the end of the Survival tree.

There’s also a lot of reporting amongst the playerbase that the Residential areas in the top-left of the map - Pale Apartments and Ruby Residence - give you a comparatively strong chance of finding Blueprints. Considering their size, there’s a high density of containers to loot in both locations, and they also have the benefit of being fairly out of the way. So you’re more likely to have all the containers to yourself.

Buried City

The best Blueprint farming locations on Buried City are the Santa Maria Houses, Grandioso Apartments, Town Hall, and the various buildings of the New District . Grandioso Apartments has a lower number of containers than the rest, but a high chance of spawning weapon cases - which have good Blueprint drop rates. The others are high-tier loot areas, with plenty of lootable containers - including Security Lockers.

Spaceport

The best places to find Blueprints on Spaceport are the Arrival and Departure Buildings, as well as Control Tower A6 and the Launch Towers . All these areas are labelled as high-value loot regions, and many of them are also very handily connected to one another by the Spaceport wall, which you can use to quickly run from one area to the next. At the tops of most of these buildings you’ll find at least one Security Locker, so this is an excellent farming route for players looking to find Blueprints.

The downside to looting Blueprints on Spaceport is that all these areas are hotly contested, particularly in Duos and Squads. You’ll need to be very focused and fast in order to complete the full farming route.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blue Gate

Blue Gate tends to have a good chance of dropping Blueprints, potentially because it generally has a high number of containers which can hold lots of items; so there’s a higher chance of a Blueprint spawning in each container. In my experience, the best Blueprint farming spots on Blue Gate are Pilgrim’s Peak, Raider’s Refuge, the Ancient Fort, and the Underground Complex beneath the Warehouse .

All of these areas contain a wealth of containers to loot. Raider’s Refuge has less to loot, but the majority of the containers in and around the Refuge are raider containers, which have a high chance of containing Blueprints - particularly during major events.

Stella Montis

On the whole, Stella Montis seems to have a very low drop rate for Blueprints (though a high chance of dropping other high-tier loot). If you do want to try farming Blueprints on this map, the best places to find Blueprints in Stella Montis are Medical Research, Assembly Workshop, and the Business Center . These areas have the highest density of containers to loot on the map.

In addition to this, the Western Tunnel has a few different Security Lockers to loot, so while there’s very little to loot elsewhere in this area of the map, it’s worth hitting those Security Lockers if you spawn there at the start of a match.

That wraps up this primer on how to get all the Blueprints in Arc Raiders as quickly as possible. With the Expedition system constantly resetting a large number of players’ Blueprints, it’s more important than ever to have the most up-to-date information on where to find all these Blueprints.

While you’re here, be sure to check out our Arc Raiders best guns tier list , as well as our primers on the best skills to unlock and all the different Field Depot locations on every map.

ARC Raiders

PS5 , Xbox Series X/S , PC

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Fantasy extraction game Dungeonborne was February’s most played Steam Next Fest demo

Stormgate, Pacific Drive, Homeworld 3 and Backpack Battles round out the top five

Image credit:Mithril Interactive

February’s Steam Next Fest demo bonanza officially concluded on Monday, and Valve have now revealed the 50 most played games you all tucked into across the week-long event. Ordered by the number of unique players that spent time with them during Next Fest proper (meaning all those early demo plays from earlier in the month haven’t been counted), the most popular game of the lot was one that was only formally announced right at the end of January. So congratulations Dungeonborne - your blend of PvPvE dungeon crawling and fantasy skelly monsters clearly struck a chord with this year’s Next Festers.

Valve don’t provide any extra context or numbers to show exactly what it takes to rise to the top of the Next Fest charts, but according to developers Mithril Interactive, they had over 19K concurrent players during their Next Fest playtest - a feat that’s helped catapult them from the top 500 of Steam’s most wishlisted games right into the top 50, all in the space of two weeks since it was first announced.

“This playtest has affirmed that our vision for Dungeonborne is on the right track,” the devs wrote in a Steam blog post on Monday. “Armed with your insights, we’re prepared to address the challenges identified during this test, such as balancing classes and gear disparity, enhancing anti-cheat measures, and polishing other gameplay details. Rest assured, every piece of feedback will be thoroughly reviewed and combined with our data analysis to guide our future development plans and release strategy.”

As for the rest of the top 50, which you can see in full here , you’ll find several familiar names in the list - many of which we clocked early in our team recommendation list , as well as many of our other demo posts we’ve written over the last few weeks.

Starcraft spiritual successor Stormgate came in at number two, followed by first-person car roguelike Pacific Drive , the recently delayed space epic Homeworld 3 and the indie autobattler Backpack Battles . Elsewhere in the top ten, I’m also pleased to see that poker roguelike Balatro and Paradox’s Civ-rival Millenia made the cut, as well as the Hollow Knight -esque Deviator .

It’s a pretty stacked list all told - clearly a sign that Next Festers have pretty good taste at the end of the day, though the fact that everyone ignored the beautiful Until Then is a crime I will never forgive (I’m sure it’s no.51). The demo’s still live, too, so you simply have no excuse. Go get it played.

In fact, most Next Fest demos still seem to be going strong at the moment, so if you’re wondering what all the fuss is about with some of these chart toppers, then there’s a good chance you still have time to find out.

Backpack Battles

PC

Dungeonborne

Video Game

Homeworld 3

PC

Pacific Drive

PS5 , PC

Stormgate

Video Game

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