gamescom Recap

Wardens of the Realm,

Following our gameplay reveal at Opening Night Live and hero reveal at FYNG Show, we conducted several days of interviews with press and creators at gamescom. Across those conversations, we spoke about quite a few parts of the game that we haven't necessarily pulled together in one place before, so we wanted to do that here to give you a chance to catch up.

In case you missed it, we also opened sign-ups for our Closed Beta, which will take place later this year.

Sign up here for a chance to participate in the Closed Beta

Campaign

Starting with singleplayer, we are building a sandbox-style, player-led campaign where you will choose one of four playable factions and fight a conquest across Westeros. You will move between a strategic map of Westeros, divided into territories, and participate in RTS battles based on locations from across the world.

We want you to experience the high stakes, alliances, and betrayals that we all know and love from Game of Thrones, while ultimately deciding not only which faction wins the war, but also which hero ends up sitting the Iron Throne. We are focused on making this systemic and replayable, rather than simply retelling a story you already know.

Factions

At launch, the playable factions are House Stark, House Lannister, House Targaryen, and the White Walkers. Faction identity is a huge part of how we are designing the game. We are pushing for deep asymmetry built around what each faction represents within Game of Thrones.

House Lannister is an easy example. If you strip away the mechanics and think about their identity, some of the first things that come to mind are gold, wealth, and power. With those keywords identified, we then ask how we can express those ideas through gameplay, specifically through an RTS lens. That leads to mechanics like being able to go into debt and overspend your resources, trading Gold for Influence, or accessing incredibly powerful but dangerous tools like Wildfire. That same thinking also extends across all four factions.

Balance

We have also been asked a lot about balance, particularly after showing dragons. We do balance the game, and it is something we are continuously working on through regular internal playtests and direct feedback from players. We want matches to feel fair, strategies to have counters, and each faction to have meaningful ways to win. But we are not building the game around competitive purity at the expense of everything else.

Fun, spectacle, and memorable moments are incredibly important to us. We want these units and mechanics to feel powerful when you have earned them, and we do not want to make something feel bad simply because it could risk it being too strong.

Every faction should have opportunities to build towards moments where they feel incredibly powerful, at different layers of the game. The important part is that those moments are earned. You won’t just be handed a dragon. Rather, you will need to make the strategic decisions and investment required to reach that payoff, while your opponent has opportunities to counter play and prevent you from getting there.

Game Modes

We also know that making a great RTS means supporting different kinds of RTS players.

So far, we have confirmed that alongside the singleplayer campaign, you will be able to jump into Skirmish across 1v1, 2v2, and four-player FFA, either against other players or bots. We are specifically building maps around these formats, and 2v2 against bots in particular will make for a fun co-op experience.

Custom games will also let you create your own lobbies and configure how you want to play. Right now, we are only confirming support for up to four players while we continue validating performance and optimisation, but we would love to support larger games if we can get them to the standard we want.

Building Westeros

Another question we have had quite a bit is about the books. For Game of Thrones: War for Westeros, the license is specifically based on the HBO television series, so that is the canon we follow. But we are all massive fans of the wider world, and where appropriate, we look to the books for further inspiration. You may have already spotted one example hiding amongst the White Walker army in our gameplay trailer, from a tale Old Nan once told Bran…

Ultimately, we are trying to build a great RTS.

We are inspired by a lot of games across the genre, and we want to deliver an RTS with the depth, complexity, and agency in strategic decisions that players expect. At the same time, Game of Thrones gives us an incredible opportunity to introduce the genre to people who may have never played an RTS before, or bring back those who haven't played one in years. If we can make something that RTS players genuinely love while helping bring more people into the genre, that's pretty exciting for us.

We have plenty of ideas for where War for Westeros could go beyond launch too, but we are not going to start promising roadmaps or committing to those plans until closer to launch.

It was great to finally get the game into the hands of creators and press heading into gamescom, and also to see the conversations and feedback coming out of the week. We are looking forward to more of you playing through our Closed Beta later this year!

If you would like a chance to participate, make sure to sign up for the Closed Beta, wishlist Game of Thrones: War for Westeros, and follow us on Steam for future updates.

Thanks for following along. We will see you in Westeros!

Valar Morghulis.