Developer Pocket Watch Games, the team behind the stealth action title, Monaco: What’s Yours is Mine, is creating a “couch” RTS game. Known simply as Armada, the multiplayer RTS is said to hit home for avid fans of the genre, while also being accessible to those who have yet to dive into real time strategy games. Andy Schatz –the sole developer for Pocket Watch Games– has stated that, to make it accessible to all, the game will be played with a controller instead of the usual RTS keyboard and mouse set up.
It’s well known that the RTS genre has yet to see an RTS title that is easy to play with a dual analog controller and Schatz says “[Armada is] gonna be the first to do it right.”
Armada is in the early stages of development, but Schatz has outlined how the game will utilize a dual analog controller. Players will control a singular character, but will have three AI character classes that will perform duties predetermined by the player. Also, a group of AI troops will accompany the player’s character to help in skirmishes and battles. As of now, Armada has no release date and Schatz says he has no idea how long the development will actually take. But its nice to know that someone out there is really trying to give us a viable option for a controller based RTS.
For now, I recommend checking out his other game, Monaco: What’s Yours is Mine. It’s available for download on Steam for Mac and PC and XBLA.