Iron Harvest E3 2019 Preview

June 30, 2019 at 2:08pm
By Jason Stettner

Iron Harvest is a RTS title that features the thrills of an alternate 1920’s era. It takes place at the end of the Great War with everyone creating large scale steampunk type machines. While at E3 2019 I was able to hop in for a demo presentation of the game behind closed doors.

This was just a setup to try out the troops and get a sense for the game. I went straight for combat as I’m quite familiar with this type of RTS, but accidently got skipped ahead to the next level which sort of broke things.

At that point I had it reset and went slower. It’s very typical if you’re played titles like Age of Empires, or Command & Conquer. It features a neat aesthetic and there are many smaller details. You’re basically creating buildings, and then manufacturing troops. We were given a generous selection of troops during the demo and it was neat to see these large scale weapons of war tower over the battlefields.

There’s a cover based system for troops, and you can also break away at the environment which is a nice touch. Cover can get destroyed basically, so you must be nimble with troop movement. There are of course also factions, but these didn’t really come into play with what I had hands-on time with. For the core game there are single player and coop campaign options. This story is supposed to be quite mature in its setup as it is told through three different factions with their three playable heroes. There are also competitive or casual multiplayer options and quickplay skirmishes which are sort of essential for this type of game. I quite like this genre of game, so I was impressed by it.

The game runs well looking smooth and being somewhat tactical. I was somewhat disappointed that the demo skipped ahead as I was blasting away enemy fortifications. I look forward to the full version, to see what they do with the story elements here. It’s a neat setting that could potentially feel fresh for the genre. That’s all for Iron Harvest, at least for now. Check out our E3 2019 hub for additional coverage from the event.

Read our Age of Empires 2 Definitive Preview
View our E3 2019 Hub