Star Wars: Empire at War Preview

As it is customary in this type of games, your beginnings will be humble, and the stakes will be very high, eventually allowing you to take control of the entire galaxy. Take the words 'the entire galaxy' with a grain of salt, as such a thing would be too ambitious even for the Petroglyoh designers. Here the phrase simply denotes a number between 20 and 30 planets. Of course, as you grow stronger a greater number of units will be at your disposal, and you will even be able to persuade some powerful heroes to join your cause - Darth Vader among others. Some 'passive' heroes do not fight on your side but rather bring you specific bonuses, so it's always handy to have them around. Some SW characters will only appear at certain instances in the game in order to 'play their role', which will add to the atmosphere and make it much more believable.

This base will soon be overrun.

Hey, Frank, how is it that we can run faster than that AT-AT?

We'll let Petroglyph's Brett Tosti describe the game mechanics and the game's main principle: "It doesn't have linear missions like most traditional RTS games. Instead, it has a persistent real-time world in which you're trying to conquer planets and essentially take over the entire Star Wars galaxy, whether you're playing as the Empire or the Rebellion. There are two sections to the game - troop-moving/planning and combat - but unlike, say, Rome: Total War, which uses a different engine for each section, we're using the same engine for both to make sure they feel connected. The engine automatically adapts to suit each gaming mode. Once you've moved your ships into position and decided to fight, the engine moves into Combat Mode until the battle is resolved." The combat will require a certain display of intelligence on the part of the player, so tactics will be far more important than plain numbers.

Petroglyph has decided against creating battles that would feature thousands of units as they figured that would ruin the unique nature of each of the units and make things chaotic rather than impressive. Still, the main premise of Empire at War is that the war is more important than the battle, so the purpose of this game isn't to destroy all the enemy forces that may cross your path, but to concentrate on the actual mission objectives and create a strategy that will secure the final victory. Empire at War will actually call for strategic thinking, which is ironically, something we're not used to seeing in strategy games.

Petroglyph is determined to show us a SW game as 'it should always have been', so it is also expected we will get to see a lot of authentic material from the movies incorporated into Empire at War. Among the units featured in the game will be the stormtroopers, Imperial snowspeeders, AT-ATs, AT-STs and speederbikes, as well as many other original units and ships from the SW universe that we couldn't picture the game without. These units will keep a certain formation that will correspond to the speed of the slowest among them. You will get a chance to participate in many battles spread across the faces of Hoth, Endor, Tattooine, and Dagobah, participating in a story that takes place two years before the events in Episode IV: A New Hope.

The single player campaign is supposed to feature two playable factions - the forces of the Empire and the Rebels. Apart from that, Empire at War will feature an online multiplayer mode for up to eight players. Tosti has confirmed that this will include classic free-for-all skirmish battles and a two-player mode. From all we've heard, Empire at War sure sounds promising, but the question remains - will all those near-to-perfection elements make for an excellent game? In any case, Empire at War will attempt to bring some light into the somewhat monotonous RTS genre, so we can only hope that it succeeds in doing so and bringing A New Hope. (Help us Petroglyph, you are our only hope! -Ed)