Driftland: The Magic Revival

Mechanics

Mechanics in Driftland: The Magic Revival combine elements of a few genres, like real-time strategies and 4X strategies concentrating on expansion, exploration, exploitation, and extermination. Economy is based on resources and magic, but in contrast to the mentioned game genres, the authors dropped the time-consuming micromanagement and put an emphasis on strategic decisions along with setting and meeting objectives.

The player’s main mission concerns taking care of kingdom and its development. The key aspect of gameplay is exploration of a procedurally-generated world and gradual merging of particular islands in order to extend your sphere of influence. The strategic and tactic parts take place on the same map, and during combat you are in control of squads composed of a number of different units, like those capable of taming and mounting flying animals. However, during gameplay you cannot directly influence your subjects’ actions – any interference in the world consists in giving orders and formulating new objectives for your subjects. Magic comes in handy in this particular aspect – you can move fragments of the planet and even change its biomes.

Technical aspects

Driftland: The Magic Revival for PC utilises powerful Unreal Engine 4 (which is rarely used in RTS games), so visuals are very impressive. At the same time mechanics follow the rule: “easy to learn, hard to master” – the game will cater for the tastes of both strategy games amateurs and veterans.