The Scouring is a small, smooth, and highly fun RTS experience made by a small but clearly well-put-together development team. Inspired by classic titles, this Early Access title already shows a great deal of polish, promising that the full release will be absolutely spectacular. Though some may feel as though The Scouring is a bit feature-light, others will appreciate this RTS title for its solid capturing of the classic experience and its ambitious, original take on new game modes and embrace of community-created content.
Something you’ll probably notice quickly about The Scouring is that it takes very clear inspiration from classic RTS titles, both in design and in its art direction.
To be more specific, The Scouring‘s visual design feels almost like a satire of the original Warcraft games. Humans and orcs stroll onto the battlefield with equal bulk, both in muscle mass and in the size of their gear, and have designs very familiar to fans of the classic Horde and Alliance. Rather than being a direct inspiration, however, the designs are cartoonishly amplified and exaggerated, and each character grunts and speaks in a brutish, grumbling gibberish when issued commands. Overall, it’s a really nice, funny aesthetic that doesn’t parody its inspirations so hard that it’s distracting or disrespectful to the source material, and it still manages to be visually interesting and “cool.”
Nostalgic though it may be, the game is undeniably next-gen in its appearance. The lighting especially looks incredible, giving some really cinematic visuals to the game’s battles. I especially loved fights that took place in the morning, with the glare from the sun giving everything a beautiful look.
Mechanically speaking, The Scouring‘s classic mode plays very similarly to what you might imagine a so-called “classic RTS” playing like.
One to around ten players, depending on the map, pick between two races and set out to gather resources, build structures, and produce troops to eventually smash open the enemy base and destroy it. A small handful of troop types are available across the two races, with each race having a unique strength in its roster and a weakness. There aren’t many unit types, but each one feels pretty unique, and in matches with many players, you can get into some absolutely huge battles.
There are interesting little additions to the typical RTS formula that make it feel more fleshed out, even if some of them aren’t entirely new. The ability for units to level up and to purchase health potions, which automatically heal them at low health, gives you the opportunity to choose between a horde-style army or a smaller, more focused one where you invest in your veterans. The ability for the swordsman class to climb and fight other units in turrets and towers is also a neat little addition that adds a lot of action to the game. That being said, I think the game could really benefit from the addition of further defensive buildings or building variety in general.
Overall, the game’s RTS mechanics feel solid, well-polished, and fun, like the developers studied the classics well and made a modern take without trying to reinvent the wheel. That being said, the amount of buildings, upgrades, and unit tiers can feel drastically short when compared to other titles such as Age of Empires. Matches feel designed to be rather short, without too much progression involved, to a point that I would say is something of a fault for players like me who like the progression in these kinds of games.
While this self-imposed limitation feels a little rough in classic mode, the game’s other mode, Heroes, is a different story.
The alternate play mode in The Scouring is Heroes, in which players take control of one of several different heroes, each one with their own unique abilities and stats. In this mode, all of the building of your base, recruiting of troops, and controlling of said troops is done by the AI. Your job is to level your heroes up, gather powerful artifacts, and assist your AI troops in moving down lanes toward the enemy base and eventually killing their hero until said hero is out of revives.
This playstyle feels much more like the classic iteration of the MOBA genre, which was built from the same games that The Scouring was inspired by. In this mode, the limited amount of units and buildings feels less like a limitation and more like a strategic element, and the game’s well-put-together AI makes for a rather fun MOBA-like experience. While it certainly isn’t the case, I almost feel like this is the version of the game the developers meant for you to play. It takes advantage of the game’s strengths much more and makes its weaknesses feel irrelevant.
The Scouring features built-in mod support, and the developers have put emphasis on their desire for a strong modding community. This gives the game a potentially limitless possibility for community-created content to populate the game, with it already having a relatively large number of mods for its first day in Early Access.
Overall, The Scouring is an impressive RTS title, especially one with such a small team. Even in its Early Access state, the game shows a lot of promise, with a solid, bug-free experience that is attentive to detail and well-constructed, if lacking a bit in variety and progression opportunities. Though the game might feel “small,” it has a lot of room for new content, and what is there feels good to play. The game’s insistence on creating strong, accessible modding tools for the community also gives it potential for infinite content in its future.
Pros:
- Smooth, polished RTS gameplay that captures the classic feel
- Strong, humorous, and appealing visual style
- Well-executed alternate Heroes mode that plays to the game’s strengths
- Solid AI
- Built-in mod support with already active community contributions
- Relatively bug-free and stable even in Early Access
Cons:
- Limited unit variety, buildings, and upgrades
- Classic mode feels more constrained compared to some other RTS titles
- “Small” in scope at present, relying on future updates or mods for long-term variety
TryHardGuides was provided a Steam code for this PC Early Access Review of The Scouring. Find more detailed looks at popular and upcoming titles on our Game Reviews page!
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