Golem Gates offers a RTS design but with an interesting twist. Players will control their so-called Harbingers and defeat the enemy with their summoned units. Though, unlike most traditional RTS titles, Golem Gates gives players a special way of summoning troops. Using Glyphs, players will create their own decks and during combat will summon troops via Glyphs that randomly draw from the deck. Golem Gates essentially will cater to those who like RTS games as well as card based games akin to Magic: The Gathering. Still in Early Access, Golem Gates already seems to be a title that can change the face of your run of the mill RTS gameplay.

Based on RTS elements and deck management, Golem Gates aims to be a strategic title with a little bit of luck incorporated. The Early Access of Golem Gates gives players the ability to try the prologue mission—which is a tutorial level essentially—as well as co-op survival and multiplayer. Online co-op offers 2 players who strive to survive waves of increasing difficulty for 15 minutes while multiplayer gives players several options which allow for 2-4 player skirmishes. Though there is no story mode as of yet, we can see that there will be up to 15 missions stretched across 3 acts. Golem Gates forces players to utilize smart deck building skills as well as strategy akin to most RTS titles.

Set in a post-apocalyptic landscape, players assume the role of the Harbinger. As the Harbinger, you have a special ability that gives you summoning skills to control troops from a power long since forgotten. You will have to defeat various beings that spew from Golem Gates scattered across the world. Only you have the power to stop these invaders and learn where they came from and or who made them. Welcome Harbinger to the dark world of Golem Gates…

Golem Gates, at first, deceived us gamers here at Honey’s Anime. When we saw the screenshots, we expected a RTS title and nothing more. However, we can honestly say how wrong we were about Golem Gates being anything but traditional. Developer Laser Guided Games, LLC might have created something truly amazing with Golem Gates and that’s what we plan on finding out here at Honey’s Anime HQ. Welcome, folks, to our review of the Early Access Golem Gates for the PC.

As we mentioned earlier, Golem Gates may look like just another RTS game but there’s more to it than meets the eye. Golem Gates infuses a deck building system and deck orientated gameplay with strategy gameplay. Now, you might be wondering how does that make Golem Gates play? Well, let’s discuss that element first.

When you begin Golem Gates tutorial, you’ll realize how the system works quite quickly. Players control a being known as the Harbinger who summons units via Glyphs. These Glyphs act as cards and every so often, new Glyphs appear in your arsenal—which is essentially your hand—and can be summoned as once you build up energy. Your objective—at least in the tutorial—is to learn how to build both attacking units and defensive ones via Glyphs. What’s cool about Glyphs is that they can be summoned anywhere you have eyes to meaning as long as you can see the area on the map you can summon troops to it. Though like Magic: The Gathering, there’s luck here as sometimes a bad series of draws or a poorly made deck can lead to a quick defeat even on the tutorial.

Now, you do have other Glyphs to use than just defensive units and attacking ones. The Harbinger can actually use special attack Glyphs—again, think of attacking spells from Magic: The Gathering—which can numerous things like unleashing fireballs on enemies or even healing your troops. You’ll need to mix up how you use these spells and your Glyphs if you want to take down the enemy unit which can be daunting as they too can summon troops and unleash spells on you. Golem Gates plays like a true marriage of card games and RTS games which makes for a rather awesome gameplay experience if we do say so ourselves.

Being an Early Access title, Golem Gates only has a few modes and maps to choose from. We dabbled with both co-op—which is a survival mode where you fight off waves with an ally or alone for 15 minutes—and matchmaking multiplayer which offers several ways to play. Here, players can either choose to play 4 players free for all, Duel—which is 1 vs 1—and or 2 vs 2. Regardless of our choice though, we did hit our first issue with Golem Gates and that is a lack of players. We tried multiple times—as of writing this review—and never got paired with another human. That always worries us here at Honey’s Anime as games like Golem Gates live and breathe on a living community of players but given that its an Early Access title we’ll only hope that Golem Gates gains more populous when the full game releases in 2018.

Lastly, let us talk about the graphics and music in Golem Gates. In terms of graphics, Golem Gates is very impressive no matter the settings. We loved the unique design in the Harbingers and troops that really made this world feel like a post-apocalyptic sci-fi setting. Equally, we were floored by the wonderful OST that keeps battles feeling truly epic and intense. With a lot of RTS titles, we usually choose our own music to play in the background but with Golem Gates, we left the music on high and loved every moment of it. If we had any gripes with anything graphically in Golem Gates though we’d have to say the level design leaves a rather okay taste with us. We hope there are more maps to play from in the full release and that some have more life to them but given Golem Gates is again a post-apocalyptic title we feel this more of a nitpick at the end of the day.

Golem Gates is realistically one of the more fun RTS titles we’ve played in a long time here at Honey’s Anime. The deck building gameplay accompanied by the strategy elements of a RTS title really breathe a new life in the typical gameplay found in most RTS games. While we noticed there was a lack of players—which is a real shame and hopefully our review changes that—we still had a blast playing against the bots in matchmaking. There is a bit of work that still needs to be done with Golem Gates and we’re hoping the story mode is done well but as it is, Golem Gates is an extremely enjoyable game that should be played by all RTS fans and even those who like deck building games. We here at Honey’s Anime HQ will definitely be keeping our eyes out for the full Golem Gates experience in 2018.

Golem Gates is truly a title that kind of took us by surprise here at Honey’s Anime. While we’re not use to seeing variations done to the traditional RTS gameplay formula, Golem Gates pulls out a rather interesting idea that works quite well in its execution. We hope the story mode plays well in Golem Gates when the full game releases and equally pray word spreads about Golem Gates to ensure more online playability but for now, we think Golem Gates has potential to be an awesome RTS title. Have you tried Golem Gates or has our review pushed you into purchasing it? Comment down below to let us know and for all your gaming news, articles and reviews please be sure to keep coming back to us here at Honey’s Anime.