Back in March, I attended an advance preview summit for Battle Aces, the RTS from Uncapped Games revealed tonight at Summer Game Fest. There, David Kim, former lead multiplayer designer on StarCraft 2 and current Uncapped creative lead, pitched the new studio's ambitious goal: a game that would trigger a «paradigm shift» for realtime strategy games by stripping the genre to its fundamentals. And after two days with the deckbuilder RTS? By god, I think Battle Aces could do it. If the words «deckbuilder RTS» generate some immediate skepticism for you—even an instinctive animal hiss—I understand. It did for me, too, and Uncapped is fully aware it's going to get that reaction. But let me dispel some of those doubts: Battle Aces isn't a StarCraft knockoff with card mechanics hastily bolted onto it as a gimmick retrofit. It's a reevaluation of RTS philosophy, designed to focus on the core joys of realtime strategy—of pairing broad-scale strategic decision making with commanding your units in satisfying moment-to-moment action—while streamlining everything else. Uncapped is hoping to make a game that's approachable for players who are interested in the fantasy of strategic command, but might've been intimidated by the high skill actions-per-second demands of RTS pillars like StarCraft. I think they're already off to a great start.
