Real-time strategy is a genre that could use a bit of a boost. Sure, Blizzard is still rocking StarCraft II, and Riot Games’ League of Legends falls under this category, but it’s time for something fresh.
Developer Blackbird Interactive just might help us out with that. The studio is working on a new RTS titled Hardware: Shipbreakers. It is a free-to-play hard sci-fi game that takes place on a Mars-like planet where gigantic spaceship wrecks are common. Gamers must guide their prospecting teams to salvage these ships before the hostile, and well-armed, competition can get to it.
Blackbird just revealed the first trailer of Hardware in action to PC Gamer, and we’ve embedded the video below:
If that gameplay looks vaguely familiar, that’s probably because it echoes the real-time-strategy title Homeworld from Relic Entertainment. Relic co-founder Rob Cunningham left that studio to start Blackbird. At Relic, Cunningham and some of his team worked on the 3D space strategy game Homeworld and World War II-based squad strategy game Company of Heroes. Blackbird wants to take all that it learned from those games and apply it to this new free-to-play RTS.
Hardware: Shipbreakers will enter closed beta later this year. You can guarantee access to that beta by purchasing the $100 Prospector’s Guide and First Wave VIP Package from Blackbird’s digital store. The guide comes with a detailed manual and equipment catalog. The VIP Package bundles the game’s soundtrack with features that enable the first 2,000 customers to name land within the game.