That seems to be the idea based on the game’s Steam page. Your modern world is dying from some apocalypse and you need to change the course of medieval history to save your world. It also implies some city building and army leading.
You’re the last hope in a dying world. Travel back 500 years, to medieval England, in order to change the course of a bloody war and maybe, if you’re lucky, stave off the apocalypse. Can you tip the scales of history and create a new timeline?
Go back in time to a war-torn medieval era with a vast arsenal of modern weapons, change the course of history, and save the future in this epic action/strategy sandbox. Build your kingdom, grab a gun, and lead an army of thousands into massive, real-time simulated battles — solo or in co-op.
Of course all the trailer clips amount to “lulz run over sword dudes with a tank”
The devs did Road Redemption which was a fairly good modern remake of the Road Rash franchise though I dunno how well that translates to time-traveling helicopter city builder/war sim.
I mean, so many shooters are about mowing down hapless unarmed zombies. Certainly a horde of medieval soldiers can offer SOME challenge on top of that?
I’d love to get stuck reloading while being rushed by a bunch of javelin tossers, or forced to deal with the cavalry with only a sidearm left, and then face off against the knights with a bayonet left. Stealth missions would be cool too, if I didn’t have access to any suppressors.
Or tower defense style, trying to hold a castle against a multi day siege with only a handful of marines vs an entire army and maybe navy too.
There’s a similar theme in Ultimate Epic Battle Simulator, though that’s top down and more battlefield level: Ultimate Epic Battle Simulator 2 on Steam. I love positioning a tank and like five modern infantry against thousands of armed peasants and a few horse archers.
I’m imagining the player does most of the slaughter themselves, so the gameplay challenge comes down to fighting hordes and it’s also inherently kind of a spectacle shooter. I’d guess it’s something that’d be fun and funny for a few hours but would start to get old after that – but maybe not, maybe there’s a strategic layer that makes it interesting or even a challenge to working with limited weapons/ammo/gas.
I’ve been playing a lot of Stranded: Alien Dawn lately, in scenarios where the only enemy is increasing hordes of alien bugs attacking. And yeah, the main challenge from the battles is that you might accidentally draft someone who’s sleepy, and they faint from exhaustion out of their mech. A single mech with missiles and chainguns can taken on an arbitrary number of melee bugs.
Obviously, this is a numbers game: give the low-tech enemies enough hit points and high enough movement speed and sufficient damage against walls etc., and the dynamics can change. But I would anticipate something similar here.
Some comedian I saw recently proposed that we have an annual test of the “we need our guns to restrain our government” theory, pitting 100 NRA members against one soldier. The NRA members would have their AR-15s, combat armor, whatever they could find. The soldier would have a drone equipped with Hellfire missiles, and a button, and a little bit of confused guilt. It would be a very short contest.
And nobody really bats an eye when the roles are reversed: how many games are there where human forces beat back alien invaders whose tech is centuries ahead of ours? If we can be a believable (by videogame standards) challenge to them, medieval soldiers can be to us.
Now, if halfway through the game it turns out that a task force of “natural philosophers” and soldiers was created by the world’s greatest kingdoms, and they have been reverse engineering your tech in secret, and they come after you XCOM style - that would be badass.
Heh, I get that it’s just a joke, but it’s an interesting scenario to ponder.
Presumably a drone could only carry a few hellfire missiles (8?), so unless the NRA members were clustered together in neat little groups thirteen abreast, it would be hard to hit them all. Though I guess they can be rather cultish, so maybe the soldier just has to stage a mock convention and invite some famous speaker?
Meanwhile, the soldier would be stuck in a tiny metal trailer, unarmed or minimally armed. Rather easy pickings if the trailer could be found.
Better give the soldier(s) an AC-130, just to be safe. (Would love to see THAT in the game! Would be a fun siege weapon.)
Oooh, and I’d love to see a modern destroyer or carrier, or a WW2 battleship, face off against ships of the line and such. Though I guess that’s more Age of Sail than medieval.
Gosh, the nine year old inside me is really twitching at the joystick for this game.
This makes me even more excited. Every cult classic needs a bit of jank, so it’s good to know the devs have experience with that. A game like this necessarily needs a little wonton disregard for convention.
I don’t know when I played Road Redemption in its development/early access cycle but I remember having fun with it. Only really played it a few times but it was with full lobbies of friends which makes any janky game better. I notice most reviews for it are from people who got about 10hrs of play time out of it so it seems like one of those sorts of games – fun but limited in lasting appeal.
It sits at Very Positive for ratings on Steam though so most people seem to have enjoyed it. I (personally) wouldn’t be “Hell yeah, if the same devs are making this game it’ll be great” but I wouldn’t refuse it on the same grounds either.
The modern ships wouldn’t even need to shoot guns at them. Just run them over. If it’s a nuclear carrier, you don’t even need to worry about running out of fuel any time soon.
“How is this possible? To recreate our weapons with their tech? You’d have to be some kind of once in a century genius!”
“We don’t have much intel sir, but as best we can tell their lead guy comes from some place called. uh, Winky? Vinchy?”
I read somewhere that what makes games interesting isn’t the stuff you can do, it’s the stuff you can’t. E.g. you want to protect your king, but you can’t move him more than one square at a time. You want to put the ball in the goal, but you can’t pick it up, you have to kick it with your clumsy feet. You want to get Mario over the platforms, but he can’t fly, he can only jump a limited distance and height. So getting out of check, scoring a goal and getting across the screen unhurt feel like real accomplishments.
Easily mowing down ranks of yeomen with your minigun would be fun for maybe a minute. Running out of ammo, limited visibility, blocked fields of fire, jammed guns etc. would be what makes it fun.
OK, fine, but maybe it got transported to a small bay that’s really shallow, and it’s stuck there like a sitting duck. Nuclear duck, but still.
The enemy ships are too close for cruise missiles. You only have the deck guns, CIWS, a couple drones, and a half-functioning first-gen F35 without any upgrades. Maybe an anti-sub helicopter. And that one marine sniper dude who was just hitching a ride. And some obnoxious foreign dignitaries upset at being warped through time with you.
The enemy is attacking with not just warships and cannons, but also a few hundred rowboats full of some mildly explosive medieval concoction lost to history. Along with innocent peasant hostages.
Your sailors are also really hungry, and uh, slightly cannibalistic in this alternate timeline. They can’t just blow up all the enemy ships wholesale, they have to board them, engage them onboard, and keep the bodies somewhat whole for later eatin’.
And, you know, this being 2025, of course you also have to have your divers mine the sea floor for ores to make more ammo with.
This sorta relevant video shows a tactical analysis of Helms Deep defended by modern Australian troops:
It’s a bit of a one sided battle. Would’ve been more interesting if the Nazghul were on scene, or Sauron breached part of the wall, etc. But I’m sure scenarios like that would be great to try out in this game.
