First Look at the Stormgate Editor at GDC 2024
On Wednesday, March 20, Frost Giant Studios’ CEO and Production Director Tim Morten was invited to take the stage at the Epic Games booth on the Game Developers Conference show floor in San Francisco. A sizable crowd had gathered to learn more about Stormgate, how we are using Unreal Engine 5, and to see something we haven’t revealed until today–an early preview of the highly anticipated Stormgate Editor.
After providing a little personal background on his career and history with the StarCraft franchise, Tim shared an overview of Stormgate and how our custom-built SnowPlay technology combines with Unreal Engine 5 to form the most advanced RTS engine yet. SnowPlay, to our knowledge, is the most responsive RTS simulation today (64 tick-rate). SnowPlay was built to support more than 1000+ units on screen without compromising gameplay feel. In addition, our technology supports replays and spectating, as well as the ability for players to join a match already-in-progress. SnowPlay even allows us to introduce Rollback technology to RTS, which to this date has primarily been featured in fighting games. Rollback is considered a game-changer–it has the potential to drastically improve online gameplay for players around the world by mitigating the feeling of latency or “input lag.”
Towards the end of his presentation, Tim introduced a video preview of the Stormgate Editor, narrated by Lead Campaign Designer Aaron Larson. The video featured some of the tools players will have at their disposal within the Stormgate client for creating their own maps, mods, and custom games when the Editor is released. It showcases the ease with which players will be able to create beautiful maps, set up custom events and triggers, and even create new unit abilities.
Please note that this was just a sneak peek at the tool that the Frost Giant team is using internally to build maps and campaign missions for Stormgate. The team still has a long road ahead before we consider our Editor to be fully functional and ready to put into modders’ hands.
It was a pleasure meeting several members of the Stormgate community who came to see the presentation, including students inspired to pursue a career in game development because of their love for RTS, experienced modders from past games we’ve worked on, and even other RTS developers!
To everyone who came to see our presentation, thank you for your support.
If you couldn’t attend in person, you can watch the Editor preview here.
