Stronghold Kingdoms may look like another Clash of Clans style tower defense title, but the free-to-play MMO strategy title is anything but. Released by Firefly Studios, Stronghold Kingdoms comes with an impressive franchise pedigree. The Stronghold series was doing resource management and tower defense before it was cool. And so it's somewhat ironic that the studio that in many ways pioneered this style and genre wasn't benefiting from it until very recently.
"About 8 years ago we were making an action RPG and the funding fell through, and the company reduced about 35 to 5 employees," said Nick Tannahill, Marketing Manager at Firefly. "Because we had that in our back pockets we launched it. They looked at the payment page, crossed their fingers and that has allowed the company to come back from five employees up to 35. It's saved us, essentially."
Stronghold Kingdoms takes the time-tested gameplay and aesthetics of the popular franchise and puts them in a free-to-play MMO setting. This could be the mobile title that really satisfies the hardcore strategy players who feel the current offerings are too shallow or watered-down.
"The big difference between this and [games] like Clash of Clans would be that when you go to the overworld in Clash of Clans , or any games of that ilk, it's one single static image with a few dots on it," said Tannahill. "It's not an interactive world, which is what we've got here."
Like most free-to-play titles, Stronghold Kingdoms does feature microtransactions, but it's a simple system based on cards and items that give temporary bonuses. Tannahill emphasized that players don't need to be pouring money into the game to succeed, but they should be ready to pour in some time.
"We've got leaderboards for every single game world and a lot of the people there have spent absolutely nothing on the game, but they have invested X hundred hours," he said.
Tannahill describes the game as "roguelike" due to the 24/7 world you play in. A castle can be attacked by another player at anytime, day or night. Which is why PC and Mac players are excited for the mobile version, said Tannahill. They want to be able to get a push notification when a castle is under attack and jump to its defense, instead of getting home from work and realizing the village has been destroyed. Particularly when it's part of a larger betrayal, thanks to a Crusader Kings-inspired territory system.
"The end game stuff is involved in the politics. There's a lot of EVE Online / Game of Throne- style backstabbing and spy work," he said. "And what we'd really like to do on mobile is surface the politics and faction control over parts of the country ... Thats the reason why people end up spending hundreds or thousands of hours in the game, is getting involved in that kind of politics."
Stronghold Kingdoms is slated for release on Android and iOS sometime this Summer. It’s currently available on Steam for PC, Mac and Linux.
