It’s hard to believe it has been nearly eight years since the final StarCraft II expansion, Legacy of the Void, was released. While there have been plenty of real-time strategy games that have released since, most would consider that StarCraft II is still in its own class. If you’ve all but given up hope that Blizzard will create another RTS masterpiece, you might be excited to hear about ZeroSpace from Starlance Studios.
The project has been in development for the past three years, but launched on Kickstarter yesterday and quickly reached its initial $100,000 funding goal. Now, stretch goals have been added that include animated unit portraits and enhanced team colors at $175,000 and three hours of cinematics, a new hero, a romance mechanic, and an exclusive romance option for Kickstarter backers only at $250,000. No stretch goals beyond the $250,000 mark have been announced.
The cinematic RTS is being branded as an epic sci-fi story where players’ decisions actually determine the fate of the galaxy. The game aims to have an open world campaign with 13 main story missions, 14 hero loyalty missions, and 40 side story arcs. There will be four main factions with 10 units and nine buildings each, along with six mercenary factions with four to five units apiece. A total of 14 heroes from various factions will appear in the campaign, and players will be able to select a single hero to lead their multiplayer games. Currently, 1v1 and 3v3 multiplayer modes are being planned, along with a truly unique cooperative multiplayer mode.
ZeroSpace looks to be an ambitious project, but this trailer might be one of the most impressive we’ve recently seen from all the RTS projects that are currently in development. Starlance is working with Ironward to make this project a reality, which also involves several StarCraft II pros.
The current timeline has ZeroSpace aiming for a launch on May 1, 2025, with early alpha starting later this year in December. If all goes as planned, the game’s alpha will kick off March 2024 before entering closed beta in December 2024.
