Stormgate features story co-written by Chris Metzen, coming in summer 2024

That’s what he was up to before rejoining Blizzard

Upcoming real-time strategy game Stormgate will feature an epic story co-written by legendary Blizzard icon Chris Metzen and New York Times bestselling author Micky Neilson, Frost Giant revealed during The Game Awards 2023.

Metzen, who rejoined Blizzard full-time earlier this year after a short stint away, is a hallowed name among fans of the studio, having acted as creative director for some of its greatest hits. Aside from starting some tabletop gaming projects of his own, it seems like he used the time away from Blizzard to help out his former colleagues at Frost Giant, a studio formed by many former Blizzard developers who worked on Warcraft 3 and StarCraft 2.

Stormgate features a sci-fantasy setting that feels like a mix of StarCraft and Diablo / Frost Giant

Neilson is another writer who has worked with Blizzard in the past, going freelance in 2016 after working for the company since 1994, though he continued to work with the studio as a freelancer on several projects. Among his personal works are several highly regarded graphic novels.

Aside from co-writing the story, Metzen has voiced a character for the game as well – a tradition at Blizzard that has now found its way over to Frost Giant.

Stormgate had its first closed multiplayer tests this year and a closed beta for the co-op mode, which features three players fighting the AI, has been underway since December 5, 2023. The Early Access launch for the game is planned to come in the summer of 2024. Developed with competition in mind, Stormgate is nevertheless supposed to offer engaging content for those looking for a single-player experience as well.

Frost Giant aims to launch the campaign for Stormgate in chapters in a live-service manner, ensuring that a continuous stream of content is awaiting players of the free-to-play game. The game will feature three playable factions, which all get their own campaigns, with two of them – the Terran-like Vanguard and the Zerg-like Infernal Host – having been revealed so far.

Developed in a heavily modified version of Unreal Engine 5 the company calls SnowEngine and equipped with rollback netcode, Stormgate aims to be the technically most advanced RTS game since StarCraft 2, its spiritual predecessor.

It’s also been announced that Barbie star Simu Liu will take on the role of Warz in the story.

Marvel actor Simu Liu wins playtest of upcoming RTS game Stormgate