Maelstrom Preview

In 2004 a game called “Perimeter” was hyped a lot due to its new graphics engine, which was based on voxels rather than polygons. The game however failed to leave an impression with the gamers. However the team that brought out Perimeter, Codemasters and KDV Games, are trying once more to make a mark with the same engine and taking care of the mistakes they made with their first game, and bringing us another RTS game titled Maelstrom.

The Story

Codemasters have hired professional writer James Swallow who is known for putting down story for dew episodes of Star Trek: Voyager TV episodes as well as both Star Trek: Invasion and Battlestar Galactica video games. Hence one can expect the game to be based on a sci fi story.

The story starts in the distant future where a giant meteor named “Maelstrom” strikes the Earth; which leads to an ecological disaster. All the major cities are either flooded or buried, and the remaining humans start fighting over the left natural resources. Now three races left on earth each having their own specialty is fighting over the most important resource – Water.

The Races

Maelstrom features three different races, the Remnants, the Ascension and the Hai Genti.

Out of these, the Remnants are guerilla warfare experts who use salvage equipment to make up equipment useful for them by stealing the technology of the Ascensions. The Ascensions, on the other hand are the most intelligent of the three races and they get all their work done by robots made by them which can transform into different shapes and modes according to the need of fighting or development of weapons like laser guns or shields etc. The third race, the Hai Genti is an alien race, which seeks to take over earth, they are technologically advanced but in order to create units and attack they need huge water resource.

The Gameplay

Although much information isn’t available about gameplay but what is known is that since the game is using a voxel based engine, it will be featuring a fully deformable terrain, which can be used by the players to dig up canals and hiding ditches. The use of a dynamic water system for flooding maps is also present; in addition the fire could be spread across into enemy territory by the use of wind, which can also be used to blow up clouds of poisonous gas as weapons.

The game developers KDV have brought a certain action element into the strategy game also, which means players will be able to zoom in and control a specific unit on the battlefield. Hence one can choose when to use a gunner and when to use a vehicle to turn the tide of the battle in his favor.

Maelstrom is scheduled to be out this fall. By the screenshots of the game, the game looks very promising and one of the games that RTS fans should keep a watch for in the future.