Many consider StarCraft 2 one of, if not the best, real-time strategy games, but one of the devs who worked on it doesn't want players to assume it can never be topped - so much so that he's working on a competitor.
Ex-StarCraft 2 multiplayer lead David Kim isn't at Blizzard anymore – he's instead senior game director for all-new RTS game Battle Aces, which is being developed by Uncapped Games. Battle Aces was first unveiled during Summer Game Fest in June, where it was sold as an "RTS game for everyone" and accessible to newcomers to the genre, as well as good fun for any hardened veterans. This is a point Kim has reiterated in a recent interview with PC Gamer. He notes that around the time Blizzard began development on StarCraft 2's 2013 Heart of the Swarm expansion, he began considering why "we have to continue to put so much pressure on RTS players to have to master these basic, I guess, execution elements before they can experience the core fun?"
Ultimately, after prototyping an RTS at Blizzard that ended up being canceled, Kim ended up at Uncapped Games, where he's still working on the genre. As for why that's the case, it boils down to a lot of love for real-time strategy and the desire to prove the genre can keep improving. "For me it's very personal, because [real-time strategy] is my favorite genre of all time, and I just can't accept the fact that players, or I guess developers even, take the stance of 'the end-all peak of RTS is StarCraft 2 and nothing can ever be better than StarCraft,'" he explains.
At 12DOVE, we recently got hands on with Battle Aces, with Andrew Brown noting that "the simplicity of Battle Aces won me over," even if "the game in its current state is still very awkward to learn for anyone who's coming from outside an RTS background." The game's latest beta phase kicks off today, which should give more players the chance to give it a go.
For more games like StarCraft and Battle Aces, be sure to check out our roundup of the best RTS games.
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