Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Battleforge, you might remember, is a “deck” based RTS, in which you play a pre-selection of units against your opponents. It went free-to-play a couple of months after launch and is now supported by people purchasing the expansion card decks. The Lost Souls expansion, which arrived last week, contains two new factions, which in turn delivers 120 new cards to your deck, adding 28 new units, 16 new buildings and 16 spells. The cost for a Lost Souls pack is about $2.50. The main game is free, and although not my favourite RTS experience it does have some neat touches and is probably worth trying out if you like a bit of strategic fantasy elf-biff.

Someone is going to be livid. Battleforge, EA’s card-trading, deck-based online RTS – which was a full-price game a couple of months ago – is now free to play. (The server is taking a pounding at the moment, and it’s achingly slow.) Anyway you can now get the full game, with two full decks, and full access to all content since release, for nothing. You have to level up in both PvE and PvP before you can enter full trading stakes, but that’s a whole lot of game for free. As an RTS Battleforge is slightly cumbersome, especially in PvE, but I can’t fault the balance or possibilities for deck-construction. Being able to build an army with the cards you’ve meticulously scraped together is surprisingly rewarding. It’s a genuinely interesting experiment, and I hope the move to a free-to-play model brings in a few more people who might get a kick out of that sort of thing.

EA’s card trading deck-based RTS BattleForge is now available to buy in North America and should hit Europe on Friday. I’ve been playing the beta and had a pretty good time: I think once the card trading and deck building starts in earnest this will be a glowing nerd-elysium. The game feels well-engineered if a little lacking in tactical flare in the campaign mode. But you don’t have to concern yourself with my chatterings because there’s a demo to play. Double launch trailers beyond the click.
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The open beta of EA’s card-trading fantasy RTS is now awake and ready for you, with all units – including the special retail purchase ones – available to all gamers who participate. Battleforge had been completely off my radar until yesterday and I have to say I’m unexpectedly impressed. The card-deck idea is indeed compelling, and – from some brief early impressions – it’s looking like it’s actually not a bad RTS either. I’ve posted the “Nature” faction trailer after the jump so that you can get an idea of the game in action. Go sign up at the slightly cranky website, I think the full install is about 2gb.

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There I was, idly clicking links in search of post-worthy news, and I stumble across Battleforge. “Collectable card game-based RTS?”, I think. “That’s either some half-mad Russian thing, potentially an out-of-the-blue triumph like Armageddon Empires, or another low-budget curio like Saga Online.” Then I thought about how my hand hurt as a result of brushing against a two foot-tall stinging nettle during a futile attempt to mow my monstrously unkempt garden, and I stopped paying attention for a little while. When I eventually tuned back in, I was surprised by two things.
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