Stardock has a full plate when it comes to sci-fi RTS games. There’s Oxide and Stardock’s gargantuan Ashes of the Singularity, Mohawk Games’ Martian economics sim, Offworld Trading Company and now Servo, a mech-based RTS from the makers of Age of the Empires.
The three games could hardly be more different, and on the surface Servo doesn’t even share much with Age of Empires. It’s all about instant engagement, 10 minute matches where huge mechs duke it out with building-sized swords and missile launchers. It’s a surprising direction, and who better to explain it to me than a man who has been designing strategy games for over 30 years: Bruce Shelley.
Shelley’s been designing games for over 30 years, first working on tabletop games, and then shifting to PC games in the late 80s. At Microprose he worked on the original Civilization and Railroad Tycoon and later, at Ensemble, he helped bring to life Age of Empires. But those heady days where RTSs ruled the roost are long gone, and it’s now a genre dominated by only a few big games.