The other day, the Earth Liberation game was officially presented as part of Steam Greenlight. Its development is headed by Pyotr Prokhorenko, who was previously responsible for such games as “Blitzkrieg 3”, “Stalingrad”, “Aggression”, “9th Company” and others. More information about the new project is in our material.
Earth Liberation
Prokhorenko at Earth Liberation, as he says himself, is “a producer with a lot of involvement in the project.” Peter not only produces Earth Liberation, but also writes a script for the game and is responsible for game design.
Peter Prokhorenko
PoRovoz Studios itself is a small studio “without much experience in the industry.” The company is officially registered in Delaware, USA, but the main staff is based in Russia — in St. Petersburg and Moscow. The real—time strategy Earth Liberation is currently her main and only project.
Initially, the game was created as a cross-platform, but after a series of experiments and focus tests on a mobile platform, the authors decided to temporarily move away from this idea. “On mobile devices, we are faced with serious problems — both technological and gameplay. The gameplay of classic RTS is not native to this platform (…) It is not very convenient to work with units on the screen of a phone or tablet, at a certain stage you begin to struggle with the system,” explains Prokhorenko.
At the same time, the team had a task from the very beginning: to make the gameplay of classic RTS become relevant now. Peter himself does not consider the genre dead: “RTS has not gone anywhere, it is now called MOBA.” But it’s about updating those mechanics and approaches that were inherent in such series as C&C, Age of Empires, Stracraft.
Earth Liberation
The desire to stay within the given paradigm and problems with its implementation on mobile platforms led PoRovoz Studios to concentrate on developing a PC version of the game. But, according to Prokhorenko, the project in its current form is not a port. This is a native PC project. However, the idea of then launching it on mobile (albeit in a redesigned form) is not left in the studio.
As for updating the genre, for this the team conducted a decomposition of the genre: “we have identified the most important things from our point of view and put them together taking into account the current requirements for games.”
For example, the length of sessions was reduced to 10-15 minutes. “Today it is not very well perceived when missions last for 45 minutes,” says Peter. We also simplified the economy as much as possible. Resources in the game accumulate automatically. The player must only occasionally choose what to build next.
The main thing that the developers have focused on is the dynamic battles of large hordes of units “wall to wall”.
Earth Liberation
“It’s not a tactical game in the sense that you don’t think what you’re going to build. The main emphasis is on the fact that you have a lot of opponents and the enemy has a lot. We started from games like KKND and Total Annihilation. This is a dynamic arcade RTS. This is meat on the crowds of units with a docked economy,” Prokhorenko reveals.
But the game had another source of inspiration, which also had a serious impact on the game: “at the beginning of the first Starcraft, there was a mission where you had to hold out for 30 minutes against waves of zerg. We partially managed to give similar impressions of the game. And the setting was chosen similar precisely because I wanted to show such a gameplay. There are reptiloids and you process them into porridge with your Marines.”
Starcraft
If the project passes Greenlight, in November-December the game will appear in “Early Access” on Steam, but at this stage the game will only have a storyline PvE campaign: “after significant updates will appear in 2017.”
To the question App2Top.ru about whether the team is not afraid that the genre in the classical sense has died, Peter replied that this is why they went to Greenlight to understand how the audience will perceive the game.
“During the development process, both I was afraid and the team was afraid. It was a little scary. Now, after receiving the first reviews that exceed our expectations, there is less fear.”
Earth Liberation