The Red Solstice Review (PC)

The Red Solstice killed me in less than 15 minutes when I first took the Survival mode for a spin, trapped in a small room, trying to find a way for my four Marines to move away from the stream of monsters coming through the door and driving spikes through the floor.

After a few other failed missions and some single-player missions, I understood that for a while the game from Ironward will be all about dying because I needed to get the experience required to unlock more varied battlesuits and create a balanced team.

I now have some of them, but The Red Solstice is still very good at killing me, creating situations where even powerful weaponry and abilities fail to be a match for the numbers of enemies and the lack of resources.

Story

The Red Solstice takes place on Mars, 117 years after the colonists there separated from Earth, and the name of the game refers to a massive storm that affects the entire planet and takes out the communications of the main colony, Tharsis.

The single-player campaign of the game will cover the adventures of Tyler Hunt as he combines forces with both Unit Black Light and Unit Night Fighter in order to investigate the problem and try to stop a deadly outbreak that affects the entire city.

The protagonist is part of a so-called Lost Generation, which has genetic enhancements and can succeed at whatever they set their minds on, and the character created by Ironward is a superb soldier, who will need all his skills to deal with the monsters that challenge him.

The Red Solstice Tactical Mode

The universe for The Red Solstice is clearly influenced by modern science fiction and owes a lot to those focused station missions in the original Starcraft, but the development team manages to add some unique touches.

The major difference is the STROL virus, which has wiped out life on Earth and is now also present on Mars, ready to destroy the rest of humanity, and the situation is complicated by the presence of insurgents with unclear goals.

The biggest problem with the setting is that it can feel a little too generic at times, with its bulky space marines and their irony-free attitude, and that a lot of information is never spelled out, even if the single-player campaign uses the classic data pad route to offer more details.

Gameplay

The Red Solstice is a game of three modes, and while the core mechanics are the same, placing the title square in the real-time tactics genre with shooter elements, the way the player approaches each of the three is pretty different.

Gamers take on the role of one of the marines who are sent to investigate the events surrounding the massive storm and the damage it has caused, and they will have to carefully use their weapons, movement, placement, special abilities, and other items found in the level to stay alive either to reach their goals or to get extracted.

The single player created by developer Ironward is made up of ten missions and asks gamers to carefully control main character Tyler Hunt but also his squad mates, moving around the locations and achieving objectives.

The Red Solstice offers a different challenge for each new level, and because the squad companions evolve from one to the next, it's important to develop them carefully and make sure that the entire group is prepared for the task ahead.

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The experience is real time and the levels of both danger and complexity increase rapidly when multiple enemies and bosses are involved in a battle, and it's very easy for the squad to be wiped out in less than a minute.

To help gamers learn the core concepts and become accustomed with the title, Ironward has added the Tactical Mode, which makes time move at 10 percent of its normal rate and allows players to control each of the four character, carefully managing their powers and their weapons use.

This concept is also available in the Survival section of The Red Solstice, where gamers abandon the role of Hunt to become an anonymous space marine who is investigating his exploits in a variety of locations, joined by a team of AI-controlled partners.

The game asks gamers to initially drop into a location and simply scout, looking for items and trying to unlock bonuses, and then missions are added, with multiple objectives and a lot of traveling required.

“As the clock ticks down, monsters tend to become more powerful, and the ultimate goal is to safely evacuate after completing as many goals as possible.”

A system of experience allows gamers to unlock more battlesuits, each with its own role and abilities, and different players will find various setups that work for them.

The full multiplayer experience in The Red Solstice takes the same core idea and makes it playable by eight gamers, with the group having to find ways to coordinate and withstand the alien onslaught.

When other humans are involved, the Tactical Mode is no longer available, and teamwork becomes more important than ever, especially when the powerful bosses make an appearance.

I can just about keep up with The Red Solstice in the Campaign and the Survival mode by making extensive use of the Tactical Mode to slow down the action and carefully move my marines while activating their special powers at just the right time.

The game remains challenging, and I often die because I get cocky and think I can handle real-time combat, but there's enjoyment when a wave of enemies is turned into pieces without a single marine taken down.

Graphics and audio

The Red Solstice is played from an isometric perspective and has a relatively classic graphics design, with dour-looking buildings and space marine look for all the characters.

The development team does show some imagination when it comes to the enemies that it repeatedly throws against the humans, but the constant thought I had about the look of the game is that it needed to set the viewpoint just a little bit higher, because it is hard to be aware of the situation while standing so close to the characters.

The interface is solid and offers enough info for the player to take the important decisions about combat, especially when Tactical Mode is enabled.

The soundtrack of The Red Solstice is effective and thematically appropriate, nicely underlining the tension of the combat sequences.

Multiplayer

The Red Solstice is clearly designed to be played with other humans rather than Artificial Intelligence partners, and the fact that missions take one hour and are heavily focused on cooperation means that the experience can be both tense and challenging.

The problem is the fact that eight players need to be involved at the same time, and that there's a limited number of gamers who have that kind of group to connect with on a constant basis, and there's no guarantee that the community will remain engaged with the title in the long run.

The Good

The Bad

Conclusion