It’s almost time for Iron Harvest. And it’s also almost time for Iron Harvest 1920+ to release on Steam with a free demo this week.
In France and Belgium, there’s an annual event called the "Iron Harvest.” Basically, French and Belgian farmers go out into their fields to look for exploded bombs, spent shell casings, barbed wire, shrapnel, and other debris leftover from the World Wars. It’s still a problem even after decades of carefully combing open fields, and to this day people still need to call in the bomb squad to collect unexploded artillery shells every year.
So it’s a great name for a real-time strategy game set in the aftermath of World War 1. And it has giant mechs in it, too.
Iron Harvest 1920+ takes place in a fictional alternate reality where World War 1 sort of ended and sort of didn’t. There are fictional nations standing in for Russia, Germany, and Poland (which is actually a small rebel group trying to get out from between these two industrial giants), with each nation’s army composed of regular soldiers, horses, and giant diesel-powered mechs.
How do we go from trench warfare to giant mechs? Nobody knows. Presumably, that'll be explained later.
There are over 30 different types of mechs ranging from small exoskeleton suits to giant walking tanks that bear a striking resemblance to World War II designs minus the treads. That's probably by design, too.
Although mechs play center stage, don't let the giant robots fool you. Iron Harvest is a real-time strategy game that bills itself as a return to the best of what made RTSs so great. There will be a single-player campaign for each of the three factions, as well as co-op campaign options so you can play with a friend. There are also instant action skirmishes and multiplayer modes for whether or not you prefer to shoot at AIs or real people.
Iron Harvest 1920+ was originally set to release on Steam, PS4, and Xbox One, but right now they're just focusing on a Steam release later this year. That'll be September 1 with pre-orders open now. If you're still on the fence. Iron Harvest will have a free demo available from June 16 to 20 where you can download the game to get a feel for it. The demo will just have instant action and multiplayer, so you'll have to wait and actually purchase the campaign.
Source: King Art Games