Infested Planet Preview – Bugs, Everywhere!

Games like Infested Planet are interesting because they build off of the RTS premise into some unique places. There is no real harvesting or base building going on here, just you and your squad of soldiers moving forward and attempting to eradicate swarms of bugs. The game itself has been in Early Access for almost a year now, and we are getting hints that it will be coming out of it any day now. So let’s see whether this game is ready.

With 28 levels, a set of 3 weekly challenges and a skirmish mode, Infested Planet has enough content to appease most RTS fans. Unless you want to take it online, then well, this game isn’t for you. Infested Planet is all about capturing bases back from swarms of bugs, so a traditional RTS just won’t work in this scenario. To make up for it, the developers had to focus on the gameplay and enhancements to the AI.

Taking over bases is easy initially, as your somewhat slow soldiers can burn through a row of bugs fairly easily with their rockets and guns. Expanding out with only a troop of 5 means you have to abandon territories and maintain control of captured areas with turrets and the like. It takes some planning. The idea that if your troop can capture one base, they can capture them all, is a bit foolish as well since the enemy bugs do upgrade. That’s where it all gets interesting.

At set points in a match, the enemy will improve their forces by adding some little tricks. Say you capture four bases, then the little buggers will deploy mine fields around their base, or upgrade their horde of slugs into tanks. This gets pretty critical because your troops are slow and there are a finite set of resources on any given level. Since their is no real harvesting, managing these resources is critical.

You can spend points on upgrading your troops weaponry, building turrets and other defensive positions, or researching enhancements for those weapons and buildings. I liked the fact that you are stuck with figuring out your own strategy for winning the game. The efficiency of your command dictates how quickly you can move through a match.

Infested Planet is an interesting strategy game with a focus on using limitations to expand the gameplay. We should have a full review for you when the game comes out of Early Access, but so far it is a promising start.