I'm trying to reverse engineer the distinctive look of classic RTS games and CRPGs. It's the isometric view, it's the sprites, and it's the over-designed, semi screen-filling menus and interaction prompts. But I also think of dense, destroyed cities and yellow-brown, post-apocalyptic deserts. It's Planescape Torment. It's Tiberian Sun. It's Jagged Alliance 2, War Wind, and the first Diablo. On a strictly visual level, these are the games I love the most. DORF combines them all. Mechanically, it's closest to Command and Conquer – but Command and Conquer set in the world of Interplay's original Fallout.
Information on RTS game before, now seems like the time to give DORF your attention. There are three factions, the music sounds suitably Klepackian, and visually, well, I don't know what else to say – I'm in love.
This is a hyper-industrial, steampunk world where it seems like miniaturization never happened; gigantic and jury rigged, DORF's vehicles remind me of the Brotherhood of Steel, while the cities and crude buildings come from Command and Conquer 2. It's like the ideal CRPG and RTS hybrid, all the best parts of the 90s visual style harmonized into one game. You need to pull up oil, harvest resources, build facilities, amass an army and – as is real-time strategy game tradition – crush your enemies into atoms.
Alongside the excellent Tempest Rising and the remaster of Stronghold Crusader, it really does feel like the classic RTS is back. Now, with two new trailers in recent weeks, I'm optimistic to hear more about DORF in the near future. Until then, you can wishlist it on Steam already.
Otherwise, you might want to try some of the best grand strategy games on PC.
You can follow us on Google News for daily PC games news, reviews, and guides. We've also got a vibrant community Discord server, where you can chat about this story with of the team and fellow readers.