The other day I was debating which game to embark on playing next. I checked on XBOX Game Pass to see what new additions there were, one of them that stood out was Iron Harvest an alt-history real time strategy game. Designed by Maximilian Kiese , developed by King Art Games and published by Deep Silver. It was free (relatively speaking) and decided why not give it a go.
Over the last few weeks I have been drinking a lot more coffee, probably not a good thing but could be consuming much worse things. While I enjoy many fancy coffees nothing quite beats a good filter coffee. While coffee is great hot it degrades in quality the longer you take to drink it, pretty much once it get becomes warm it starts to lose it taste and smell. Playing Iron Harvest I found myself asking was this a great filter coffee that stayed hot for ages or had it become warm quickly and lost its appeal?
Story
Iron Harvest has an extremely rich story. It is an alternative history, set around the 1920's and featuring diesel driven mechs. There are multiple factions you can play as and all add information to the overarching story along with presenting their own back stories and history. The base game features three factions; Polonia, Rusviet and Saxony.
The Polonia faction's lead character is Anna Kos, after the death of her brother she joins the resistance to try and take back her country from the Rusviet. The Rusviet faction has you take control over a multitude of characters, there is divide, some looking for peace for Polonia and others wanting war. The Saxony faction has you play as General Gunter von Duisburg, a veteran of wars trying to help conquer Polonia and Rusviet, but is forced to question who is the true enemy?
Overall the story is amazing, well thought out, the only real down side is that to a degree the game finishes on a cliff hanger. Looking at the two DLC available at present neither seems to provide a full conclusion. This could mean there will be more DLC or perhaps the story will be continued in Iron Harvest 2 (if one is made).
Visuals
The visuals are absolutely stunning, the combination of the country side, wooded area, and snow covered fields combined with diesel powered mechs is quite a sight to behold. While exploring the towns and villages they have a very realistic feel and a lot of time and effort has been put into the landscapes. Then seeing large and in some cases huge mechs traversing these same areas is very surreal and cool. I love mechs, but seeing innovatively designed diesel powered ones was amazing. While clearly out of place in the real 1920's it can be easily imagined how a few things changing could have brought about their creation.
Overall the game is worth playing for the visuals alone and creates a sense of magic and wonder making me question as to 'what if' our world would look like now if diesel powered mechs had existed in the 1920's?
Music
The music has a very military sound, which fits perfectly with the style of game, and in honesty I do quite like military music as a genre. The music conveys both a feeling of sorrow and loss but also chance and possible victory. The soundtrack is created by Polish composers; Adam Skorupa (Witcher 3, Witcher Enhanced Edition, Shadow Warrior), Krzystof Wierzynkiewicz (Bulletstorm, Ancestor's Legacy, Shadow Warrior), and Michal Cielecki (Shadow Warrior 1 and 2).
The soundtrack is relatively speaking quite short and is well under an hour in length. That being said I loved every track and is certainly one of the more standout soundtracks I have listened to this year. Overall a very enjoyable soundtrack that I have no doubt will listen to again even if not replaying the game itself.
Gameplay
Iron Harvest is a real time strategy game. It offers you the choice to try multiplayer, skirmishes and of course the main campaign itself. The gameplay is the weakest element of the game overall, and while there are certainly many great things about it there are some that really spoil it.
The missions vary between playing with a single hero and a few troops for support, protecting an area, and building up a base and going all out (my favorite type). Each hero has some great abilities and can take on a small group of enemies alone with very little effort. The mechs you have are really cool, not only in look but also on feel, creating ideal units and then combining them without others can make you a fearsome force. The downside is that you are very limited as to how many units you can produce, in the beginning of the game this is fine but as things go on the amount of enemy mech versus your own is very unbalanced. Additionally, after the first few mission standard troops seem pointless other than engineers that can repair the mechs. I could not quite tell if it was simply that the mechs were over powered or infantry (even the more advanced ones) were underpowered.
The game allows you to produce a very small amount of resources through your Headquarters, but most of it will need to be gathered from Iron mines and Oil pumps which can be captured and upgraded. They are able to produce resources indefinitely, so as long as you are careful and play slow you can dominate many of the maps.
The gameplay starts failing a little over half through the game. The issue is that the enemies seems endless and overwhelmed me a lot. I have played many RTS games and never run into this level of imbalance, I am fine with a challenge but certain parts seemed unfair even on the normal difficulty setting. It started to feel grueling no matter what tactics I employed, I ended up watching a few videos to see what I was missing.
Overall there is some great gameplay and some awesome units, but half way through the game starts to feel imbalanced and changes the game from being a challenge to a pain.
Final Thoughts
So, after twenty hours plus how did I feel? Mixed. The story, visuals and music are amazing. The biggest flaw in the game is arguably the most important with an RTS which is the gameplay. While it starts balanced the game ramps up in difficulty to a level where it simply unfair and removes the joy I have gotten from most RTS games. This one could have had a higher score had some issues been resolved, sadly this one falls shy of its full potential and gets 3 out of 5
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