16 Oct 2018
Whether or not we get Bad North on mobile this year remains to be seen – it seems to have been swept up in the Switch-mania, so Nintendo’s handheld superstar is probably going to have to fend off viking incursions before us iOS or Android vets even spot the sails on the horizon.
What’s not in question though is how good the game is. In case you didn’t spot it, the long-awaited micro-strategy game has released today on PC. Not via Steam, interestingly enough, but via Discord’s own storefront, which also went live today.
We reviewed it over at Strategy Gamer, if you’re interested in reading more about it, but to summerise Kendal’s thoughts:
Bad North is a unique take on a challenging real-time strategy game, simply by virtue of its simplicity. Giving a nod to games like Into the Breach and Kingdom: New Lands, as oppressive difficulty ramps up slowly over time, the actual game-play behind positioning your units, issuing commands, and using special abilities remains relatively stable. While the initial set of islands comes off as a relaxing take on zone defense, later missions can quickly devolve into chaos at a moment’s notice. They bill themselves as a ‘micro-strategy’ game, but this is secretly a roguelike that will satiate both RTS newcomers and grizzled virtuosos.
I’ve even taken it for a spin myself and can confirm there is calming simplicity to what it asks of you, and yet defending your chosen island from the heathens is no simple feat, especially as the game progresses. The main thing we’ll want to watch out for when the game does eventually hit mobile is how well the touch controls work. The key movement concerns are being able to rotate your island with ease, select the unit you want with minimum fuss, and then send them to their destination with accuracy.
Hopefully, we won’t have long to wait.