Tempest Rising

Tempest Rising review code was provided by Slipgate Ironworks. Thank You!

Tempest Rising is a modern RTS inspired in a good way by Command and Conquer with fast-paced action, building, and combat. I’m confident it will bring the modern audience closer to the RTS genre, which is a classic in many ways.

Developed by Slipgate Ironworks and 2B Games, Tempest Rising is like many other RTS games, including titles like Stormgate and Command and Conquer. You focus on a main headquarters, build a base, gather resources by investing money in Harvester vehicles, then follow up by recruiting an army to dominate the map. Tempest Rising offers cool army types, from your basic infantry and Special Operators that can control drones, to Engineers that can help hijack enemy buildings, and some recruits that can help you out with lookout towers.

Story with Two Campaigns

The game features two campaign story modes for the two different factions. Global Defense Forces (GDF) is a highly mobile and advanced peacekeeping corps, while Tempest Dynasty (DYN) is a hard-hitting and desperate faction that controls the Tempest vines. If you’re brand new to the RTS genre, you should jump in and play the campaign on the Easy difficulty. This will help you with tutorials as you play the storyline missions and during your battles against GDF or DYN, depending on which faction you chose, and they do a good job teaching.

As for the story, an alternate history Earth faces the Cuban Missile Crisis that expands in all directions, creating World War 3 and leaving never-ending chaos. A new energy source known as Tempest has emerged, and warring factions are intoxicated by the potential of Tempest, locking them in a dispute to control it.

Unfortunately, the missions in the two campaigns aren't quite varied, with a lot of repetition that leaves a bland taste, but some are a good homage to the Command and Conquer games. You can play as a Specialist unit, with special abilities, good passives, and perks. Each passive ability is connected to a specific damage type the unit can inflict while fighting multiple adversaries. Perks are passive traits that become active or inactive depending on the unit's mode.

However, that’s not all with this two-story campaign, which features different play styles. This includes highlighting the different building styles for DYN and GDF. As an example, GDF has a more linear approach where you buy a building and place it, but it takes time to build. But that’s not the case with the Dynasty faction; you have different build menus to select your build, and it will take your resources. Then you can just drag and drop it, building it instantly.

Gameplay Features, Multiplayer, and Combat

Combat styles are very different between the two factions, with the GDF having units such as the AT Infantry and Drone Operator, while DYN offers Flamethrowers, Cluster Missiles, and more vehicle-based options, which benefit players in different ways when they are deciding how to tackle the match.

For beginner players in PvP, I think GDF has a slower build system and upgrade system that is easy to comprehend. Multiplayer is close-quarter and fast-paced, so going with GDF gives new players a chance to get acquainted with the mechanics and efficiently gather all the resources they need to build what they have to. However, this can also change if you’re in a 2v2 scenario, and if you have great communication, this can play out pretty well because you can use units called Sentinels to rush on enemies, and Engineers are also a great way to capture some enemy buildings.

When it comes to DYN, they offer really good vehicles and tanks. You can play more aggressively, and they can have a really good impact in mid to endgame. That’s why I think DYN is a slightly better playstyle for me, as multiplayer sessions are shorter and you need to make money quickly and rush the enemies to stop them in their tracks. With some of their units, it can be a lot of fun.

I also want to check how having different support powers for Factions makes the game fun. Factions in Tempest Rising have their own support powers similar to the super weapons in Command and Conquer games. The GDF’s support powers can release air strikes that deploy troop carriers loaded with forces, while DYN's support powers will let you fire extremely volatile Tempest missiles. I kid you not, the airstrike command for the DYN is so fun if you've got extra money for some big booms. The game has many abilities to help define your playstyle, making combat fun for both Factions.

Tempest Rising - Steam Deck Performance

Tempest Rising does support 1280x800 as a resolution, eliminating black bars on the Steam Deck. It does not, however, have controller support. You must use the Keyboard (WASD) & Mouse controller template to play the game. Fortunately, this puts most controls in place for you; the main thing you're missing is hotkeys for certain actions, so you might want to edit your layout to add in some of your favorite hotkeys, such as repairing units.

Weirdly, there is a UI scaling option, but it cannot go beyond 1.00, which means some text (mostly your resources) is on the smaller side and might be hard to see at a glance.

As far as performance goes, Tempest Rising is quite hungry for resources, taxing both the CPU and GPU. Running the game at 1280x800, Lowest Settings, and then putting FSR3 onto "Quality" gives us a pretty good result. I've put our recommended settings in the images below, which you can click to enlarge and look at.

Using these settings, I had drops down to the high 20s in intense combat, large armies put a strain on the Steam Deck's CPU, and the Red Crystals (Tempest) you collect as resources put a strain on the GPU, so depending on the location of a large battle, your performance may vary. Use the in-game frame limiter to limit to 30 FPS, and most of the game should run at that.

The power draw varies, from around 15-16W when little action is taking place to up to 21W in intense scenes. So you can expect around 2.5-3 hours of battery life from a Steam Deck OLED and 1.5-2 hours from a Steam Deck LCD. Temperatures were around 65- 70 °C.

Conclusion

Tempest Rising is great for new players trying to jump into a modern-style RTS. The game plays great, sound design is good with destruction effects and soundtrack, and I like the Jukebox where you can select your favorite songs from the list to play. At the same time, you build your economy and destroy GDF (I don’t have any personal grudge, it's just that the Fire Infantry is cool on DYN). Campaign missions are repetitive, as you might play several of the same type/style of mission, but it’s still a great and fun way to learn new techniques, such as what passives are good to use, which can eventually help in multiplayer battles.

Steam Deck performance is okay. It's playable, but you will need to adjust the controls to your liking, and do expect slight dips from 30 FPS in intense combat. You may not want to play serious, ranked multiplayer on your Steam Deck, but it's decent enough for a casual game with friends.

Our review is based on the PC version of this game.

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