War for the Overworld Review

I’ve had to make a promise to myself early in the note taking phase of this review that I have to limit the number of times I can mention Dungeon Keeper. This is for two very clear reasons: The first is that War for the Overworld is essentially Dungeon Keeper; The second is that if I don’t limit myself, Dungeon Keeper will be mentioned more times than War for the Overworld. Now that I’ve almost filled my quote in the very first paragraph, we can begin.
Fresh off of the launch of Pillars of Eternity, released to huge acclaim, we have yet another crowdfunded game hitting the market that, while nowhere near as large in budget, still had a decent following behind it (mostly due to the strong links it had to the aforementioned game that I need to stop mentioning). These links include a large number of developers working at Subterranean Games, which originally were some of the more dedicated modders of DK.

What seems to be the problem is also the major reason War for the Overworld got as much attention and cash that it did. The team was so true to the Dungeon Keeper experience that they just created it again, though in a prettier version. This feeling is even more enhanced when you realise that the voice from the original, Richard Ridings, is back with his deep booming voice, ready to mock you at any and every turn.

You don’t have to go even further beyond the aesthetic to see even more similarities. Gameplay is near on identical, from the way land is dug and gained to the rooms you can place down. There are some differences, for example the hatchery has now been made into a slaughterhouse, you eat micropigs instead of chickens now, but beyond these small things it’s like stepping into an old shoe: you know it fits and does the job, but also that it’s a bit worn.
This isn’t to say it’s a completely negative thing. War for the Overworld is filling a niche that has gone ignored for much too long, only having two reasonably high profile releases in the past few years, these being A Game of Dwarves and the monstrosity that was Dungeon Keeper Mobile, which is best forgot and lost to the annals of time.

For the uninitiated, the aim in Overworld is to conquer everything. You do this by building your own dungeon, starting with a core and five basic minions you can dig through and build different types of rooms that offer different abilities or types of minions at your disposal. For example, a Barracks will summon Gnarlings (fighters that are able to salvage weaponry and armour from enemies killed in battle) and an Archive will summon Cultists, which can research artifacts that can be found to increase the rate in which Sins are gained.
Of course for any of these minions to be summoned, of which there are a large number, access to a gateway to the underworld is essential. These are always within a few blocks of your core at the start of every level. The first thought that may spring to your mind is that you just need to create a huge barracks, rest room for your men to sleep, slaughterhouse and tavern for them to eat and then just send the army in, but it’s not quite that easy.

 

In fact, you have no direct control over the minions. You can set tasks for them to perform, such as selecting blocks to dig or placing defense or door plans for them to build, but they ultimately perform the tasks that they want to do. With the fighting troops it becomes even more awkward, as you can put a rally flag down and they should, in theory, fight towards the flag. Whether they will or not is a question best left to the gods. The best you can do with a soldier is pick them up and place them as close to the enemy as your territory allows you to.
The deciding factor is the happiness level, as each minion has one and the happier they are, the more likely they’ll be to follow your orders. This level looks to be determined by a number of things such as their health, tiredness, hunger and if they’ve been paid or not. Pay seems to be a key thing, and it’s somewhat easy to run low on money once you’ve dug out the blocks with gold. You can gain some from the minions spending it in the tavern, but the best way is to find and capture a gold shrine and have your workers mine it for eternity.

Beyond your basic digging out and room building, there are three skill trees to level up using your sins. The sins are gained either through the Archive, which spawns cultists who in turn will pray in the room, or gained through other actions such as digging, killing enemies and capturing land. One issue with the skill trees is that even though they are shown as separate, as you unlock from one tree, all of them are then pushed down allowing you to unlock later items before the early ones.

The major issue with the skill trees just happens to be that they are utterly pointless. Not in the idea that the unlocks are pointless, not at all - they are the rooms and spells that are essential to the game - but that it was pointless having them in separate trees or even in a tree form, as within a short amount of time you will have unlocked everything of value and then just be using sins to mop up the rest. I’ve noticed, in a four-player skirmish, that I’ve unlocked a good ninety percent of things before any real conflict has occured.
This isn’t to say it can’t be fixed in a patch. It may even be a design choice by Subterranean, as not having unlocked some buildings until quite late could make your dungeon building a real pain, moreso if you’re like me and you like to have everthing segmented into seperate rooms with corridors leading towards different areas.

It would be great if the feeling of pointlessness with the skill tree was the only problem to find with War for the Overworld, but sadly that’s not the case. The major issue everybody will encounter is that the AI is downright stupid. Effectively all you need do is find the path where you’re going to get attacked from, place a decent number of defenses there to make it impassable, sit back and claim victory, lord of the the underworld.

I wish I was joking. It’s most evident in skirmish, as the campaigns tend to be scripted in a way that means you’ll get attacked from a number of directions. While playing in Skirmish, however, you’ll notice very quickly that whatever part of your dungeon is closest to the enemy, that’s the place you’ll get attacked. The only time that isn’t the case is when enemies are digging out blocks to the side of your dungeon and manage to find you, but once it’s all dug out, the most defended part, yet again, starts to look like the battle of the Somme. Unfortunately the AI isn’t the only thing I can complain about either, as War for the Overworld is riddled with bugs right now. If you were to step on an ant hill, first you would be annoying a lot of ants, and second, you’d encounter only slightly more bugs than you encounter here. I exaggerate, though there are a lot. These can range from anything as minor as a campaign cutting to black and heading back to the selection screen after finishing the level, to enemies floating in mid air or the cursor just bugging out when you’re trying to place a defense or pick something up.
Other, more notable issues I’ve encountered are the changing of my team colour when I’ve loaded up a skirmish.

Sadly this isn’t where it ends. The most egregious crime committed here is probably the lack of optimisation. Without putting too finer point on it, War for the Overworld still struggles. It jumps, stutters and takes an absolute age to launch. As well as this, for the sake of knowing I took a look at task manager and the process was holding onto a staggering 3.5gb of memory, indicating something is wrong somewhere.

Contrary to what this last half may indicate, I’m enamoured with War for the Overworld to a reasonable degree and it all comes full circle to the start: we need a new Dungeon Keeper. War for the Overworld is a game that will be brilliant when it’s been fixed up and more content added. As of now, the campaign is decent enough, but only four maps for skirmish and online, alongside the issues found, means that the game is a little light on content.
Support it though, because it will be worth it. Is it worth the £22.99 asking price on Steam? In its current state, not quite. Fixed up, certainly. I don’t doubt that it will be fixed up either, Subterranean are lovers of the heritage of Overworld and the passion already up into this is a strong indicator that only good things are to come.