''War for the Overworld'' is a

real-time strategy Real-time strategy (RTS) is a Video game genre, subgenre of strategy video games that do not progress incrementally in turn-based game, turns, but allow all players to play simultaneously, in "real time". By contrast, in Turn-based strategy, turn ...

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...

developed by Brightrock Games (previously called Subterranean Games) based in

Brighton, UK Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...

. The game started as a

crowdfunding Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising money from a large number of people, typically via the internet. Crowdfunding is a form of crowdsourcing and alternative finance. In 2015, over was raised worldwide by crow ...

campaign on

Kickstarter Kickstarter is an American public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative projects to life". As of July 2021, ...

, which ran from November 29, 2012, to January 3, 2013. In the game, players build dungeons containing deadly traps to kill adventuring heroes that enter. The game is inspired by ''

Dungeon Keeper ''Dungeon Keeper'' is a strategy video game developed by Bullfrog Productions and released by Electronic Arts in June 1997 for MS-DOS and Windows 95. In ''Dungeon Keeper'', the player builds and manages a dungeon, protecting it from invading ' ...

'', ''

StarCraft ''StarCraft'' is a military science fiction media franchise created by Chris Metzen and James Phinney and owned by Blizzard Entertainment. The series, set in the beginning of the 26th century, centers on a galactic struggle for dominance am ...

'', ''

Overlord An overlord in the English feudal system was a lord of a manor who had subinfeudated a particular manor, estate or fee, to a tenant. The tenant thenceforth owed to the overlord one of a variety of services, usually military service or serje ...

'', and '' Evil Genius''. It includes a campaign, sandbox mode, and

online multiplayer A multiplayer video game is a video game in which more than one person can play in the same game environment at the same time, either locally on the same computing system (couch co-op), on different computing systems via a local area network, or ...

Plot

The "mad god" Mendechaus (voiced by fourth wall breaking narrator

Richard Ridings Richard Ridings (born 19 September 1958) is an English actor. He portrayed Alan Ashburn in the ITV television drama ''Fat Friends'', Bernard Green in the BBC One comedy-drama '' Common as Muck'', and is the voice of Daddy Pig in ''Peppa Pig''. He ...

) restores underlord Oberon and orders them to invade the underworld of the empire of Kairos, a realm protected by the goddess Kira. Oberon gradually pushes through Kairos' underworld, defeating both goodly heroes and traitorous underlords in an effort to retrieve the demonic Kenos artifact, which will allow for a final assault on Kairos' capital. After besieging the capital and defeating the emperor, Mendechaus betrays Oberon. Kira, who has previously played a role in the apparent betrayals of several underlords before, saves Oberon from destruction, addressing them as Overseer.

Gameplay

In the game, players assume the role of an Underlord tasked with building dungeons that contain deadly traps and enemies to kill wandering heroes. The game starts with a blank slate and lets players choose where to "dig, fortify, and build" to create their dungeon. The game is played in real time, with the player actively making decisions while fighting occurs. Armies of minions can be trained and commanded to vanquish foes, and spells are available which can injure enemies or assist minions during battle. The game requires

micromanagement In business management, micromanagement is a management style whereby a manager closely observes, controls, and/or reminds the work of their subordinates or employees. Micromanagement is generally considered to have a negative connotation, main ...

to keep minions working, supplying them with food and gold.

History

Origins

''War for the Overworld'' started development in 2009 as a

fan-made Fan labor, also called fan works, are the creative activities engaged in by fans, primarily those of various media properties or musical groups. These activities can include creation of written works (fiction, fan fiction and review literature), ...

sequel to ''

'' and ''

Dungeon Keeper 2 ''Dungeon Keeper 2'' is a strategy game developed by Bullfrog Productions and published by Electronic Arts in 1999 for Microsoft Windows. The sequel to ''Dungeon Keeper'', the player takes the role of a 'dungeon keeper', building and defending ...

''. Taking its name from the subtitle of the defunct ''

Dungeon Keeper 3 ''Dungeon Keeper 3: War for the Overworld'' is a cancelled PC strategy game by Bullfrog Productions for Microsoft Windows. ''Dungeon Keeper 3'' was set to be the next installment in the ''Dungeon Keeper'' franchise. Players were charged with ma ...

'', the game went through several incarnations, starting with a version based on a custom

OpenGL OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is a cross-language, cross-platform application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D and 3D vector graphics. The API is typically used to interact with a graphics processing unit (GPU), to achieve hardwa ...

engine, and later

Unreal Development Kit Unreal Engine (UE) is a 3D computer graphics game engine developed by Epic Games, first showcased in the 1998 first-person shooter game ''Unreal (1998 video game), Unreal''. Initially developed for Personal computer, PC first-person shooters, i ...

, it was announced in November 2011 that a decision had been made to leave the Dungeon Keeper IP and the team finally settled on using the

Unity Unity may refer to: Buildings * Unity Building, Oregon, Illinois, US; a historic building * Unity Building (Chicago), Illinois, US; a skyscraper * Unity Buildings, Liverpool, UK; two buildings in England * Unity Chapel, Wyoming, Wisconsin, US; a h ...

Engine, announcing the change in June 2012. Subterranean games went on to join with another

indie developer An indie game, short for independent video game, is a video game typically created by individuals or smaller development teams without the financial and technical support of a large game publisher, in contrast to most "AAA" (triple-A) games. ...

called Rise Games who had been working on ''Epoch Saga: Shattered Shores'', a

role-playing game A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game, RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of player character, characters in a fictional Setting (narrative), setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within ...

set in

Atlantis Atlantis ( grc, Ἀτλαντὶς νῆσος, , island of Atlas (mythology), Atlas) is a fictional island mentioned in an allegory on the hubris of nations in Plato's works ''Timaeus (dialogue), Timaeus'' and ''Critias (dialogue), Critias'' ...

. announcing the collaboration September 2012.

Funding campaign

On November 29, 2012, Subterranean Games launched a

campaign for their game with a £150,000 goal set for January 3, 2013. For every £75,000 the campaign receives, the developers plan to release one of twelve flex goals determined by vote. These goals offer extra content for the game including more multiplayer and co-op content and a

dungeon crawl A dungeon crawl is a type of scenario in fantasy role-playing games in which heroes navigate a labyrinth environment (a "dungeon"), battling various monsters, avoiding traps, solving puzzles, and looting any treasure they may find. Video games an ...

mode which lets players be the hero in the dungeon scenario. Backers—people that pledge during the campaign—are given rewards based on the size of their pledge. Rewards include beta access, a digital copy of the game, and a copy of the game's soundtrack. If the campaign reaches its base goal, the developers plan to release the game on

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

OS X macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...

, and

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

on August 30, 2013, and they would additionally release a

modding ''Modding'' is a slang expression derived from the English verb " to modify". The term refers to modification of hardware, software, or anything else, to perform a function not originally intended by the designer, or to achieve bespoke specific ...

tool to the community. Called the Dungeoneer, it would allow users to create new maps, campaigns and game modes. On December 22, 2012 Dungeon Keeper creator

Peter Molyneux Peter Douglas Molyneux (; born 5 May 1959) is an English video game designer and programmer. He created the god games '' Populous'', ''Dungeon Keeper'', and '' Black & White'', as well as ''Theme Park'', the ''Fable'' series, '' Curiosity: W ...

praised Subterranean Games passion and strategy in making the game and asked people to pledge to the Kickstarter campaign. By December 29, 2012 the £150,000 target was made through Kickstarter pledges. A total of £211,371 was reached at the end of the Kickstarter campaign on January 3, 2013. Further pledges via PayPal increased the amount to over £225,000 on January 6, 2013 securing the first flex goal of

as narrator.

Development and early releases

An Alpha version of the game, dubbed Bedrock Beta, was released on May 15, 2013, allowing players to experience the game during development, as well as assist in development by reporting bugs and giving feedback on their experience. On February 5, 2014, Subterranean Games sent out an update regarding the delayed delivery date, stating they "were extremely naive with our initial estimate .as to how long it would take to release the game", without issuing a new release date, instead turning to

Steam Steam is a substance containing water in the gas phase, and sometimes also an aerosol of liquid water droplets, or air. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization ...

Early Access.

Release

The game was released on April 2, 2015, in an unfinished state due to time and financial constraints. This resulted in the development team working extreme hours to release a series of patches over the following weeks and months. By September, "a lot of the loose ends" were fixed with the 1.2 patch. Subsequent patches were released over the next three years, adding features including a map editor, steam workshop support, a

tower defense Tower defense (TD) is a subgenre of strategy games where the goal is to defend a player's territories or possessions by obstructing the enemy attackers or by stopping enemies from reaching the exits, usually achieved by placing defensive struc ...

mode called ''The Crucible'', and finally a scripting system for the editor in the 2.0 release.

Expansions

The game received a total of three expansions from 2016-2018: ''Heart of Gold'' was released on May 27, 2016. The expansion continues the story from the base game with four additional levels, a new underlord and associated cosmetic additions. ''My Pet Dungeon'' was released on April 3, 2017. It was inspired by the eponymous mode from ''

''. The eight level campaign features levels without gateways, with units instead needing to be rescued from prisons around the map. A "God mode" is also unlocked after completion, with wave based gameplay. ''The Under Games'' was released on April 20, 2018, containing a seven level campaign, new AI, and three new underlords. An ''Ultimate Edition'' of the game was launched alongside, which includes all three expansions.

Reception

The game has a score of 65% on Metacritic based on 14 reviews. The game holds an overall score of 85/100 on the Steam store as of December, 2022.

References

External links

* {{Official website, http://www.wftogame.com/ 2015 video games Dungeon management games Video games with downloadable content Real-time strategy video games Multiplayer and single-player video games God games Fantasy video games Indie video games Kickstarter-funded video games Linux games MacOS games Steam Greenlight games Windows games