Game of Thrones RTS Preview — Full Breakdown & Transcript

[00:02] the base building RTS game was far more prevalent than it is today, I have a special fondness for this variety of strategy game. So, when a new one gets announced nowadays, the wave of nostalgia washes over me and I take

[00:15] when Playside announced the upcoming Game of Thrones War for Westeros RTS back at Summer GameFest 2025. Recently, I had a chance to ride into battle, waving the banner of House Stark and Lannister in an early build of the game,

[00:30] coming away knowing a bit more now than Jon Snow. A Song of Ice and Fire, as opposed to the prequels of House of the Dragon or A

[00:45] Night of the Seven Kingdoms, War for Westeros has players hoist the banners and take command of some of their favorite great houses. These include the lions of the Lannisters, Daenerys Targaryen and her dragons, or even the

[00:59] themselves. The build that I had a chance to check out was a bit less grand, consisting of 1v one online and offline skirmish modes with a choice of fielding the armies of either the Stark or the Lannisters with a choice between

[01:12] or the Lannisters with a choice between two smalish maps. Visually, War for Westeros adopts the look and feel from the show with heroes like Jon Snow and Tywin Lannister, both looking like their respective actors,

[01:24] Kid Harrington and Charles Dance, and drops them into an already impressive state, I was impressed with just how good War for Westeros is looking. Watching flaming arrows rain down on Lannister structures, setting them flame

[01:39] as they crumble. or the brilliant emerald flames of wildfire engulfing poor Rob Stark as the pyromancers hurled their precarious projectiles were always their precarious projectiles were always delights to watch. No time to waste. The

[01:53] and destruction is already looking pretty damn good, too. And even though only two of the factions were playable, I really got the sense that Playite is aesthetics of the various houses look

[02:06] distinct. You could zoom in and see the Stark units adorned with the fur capes and armor that living in the north would require with their structures built from sturdy lumber and gray stone while the Lannisters fielded soldiers with golden

[02:18] crimson armor and their buildings draped with the lion's band. Lannister is far deeper than simply one side has wolves and the other lions,

[02:32] which to be clear, the Lannisters don't have lion units as far as I know. Both armies can unleash all sorts of unique units with varying abilities and strengths, which I eagerly took advantage of. With both armies requiring

[02:44] take advantage of. Starting off first with House Stark, these northerners are powerhouses with some fantastic cavalry the lines of pretty much anything the Lannisters can put out there. In a bit

[02:58] of a surprising twist, the Stark faction is also able to recruit and train not only the powerful Knights Watch brothers with both melee and ranged options to pick from, but also wildlings and some of the beasts that call the realm beyond

[03:11] of the beasts that call the realm beyond the walls home. likes of Rob Stark, Jon Snow, and their direwolves served as the faction's hero

[03:24] units. These special troop units will level up as they take out enemy forces, learning more and more powerful abilities as they go at the expense of longer recruit times and higher costs to do so should they unfortunately fall in

[03:36] battle. Jon Snow, for instance, will inspire those around him, making his nearby troops deal more damage and imparting some damage resistances while also having another ability that lets him deliver a savaging sword strike and

[03:48] causing a bleed effect. We need >> Lannisters always repay their debts, and that's thanks largely to them being stinking rich, a fact that Playite has used to help define the faction. The

[04:02] Lannisters gold production structures produce more of the given resource, granting them a faster rate of getting gold, and they can make their builders work faster by lining their pockets with a little bit of extra coin. Coupled with

[04:15] their ability to at any time turn gold into influence and vice versa. Influence being the other resource used for building and training your more advanced structures and units. This house has a vastly easier and faster early game

[04:27] compared to the folks from the north. While the Starks gain all their allies methods. The Lannisters can purchase contracts for a variety of mercenary companies to hire their fighters, each with different strengths.

[04:45] heroes with the younger of the lions serving best on the front lines while Tywin leads from a top his horse. Tywin can negate debuffs on his troops while strengthening his own cavalry and Jaime being a master swordsman can deliver

[04:59] some devastating strikes on single targets while also taunting enemies to target him instead. Alternatively, using his menacing history as a king slayer can slow and damage enemies near him over time.

[05:16] where they can start expanding and building out their bases. You have your seat of power, your home base you have to protect from being destroyed, and thus losing you the game. But you'll also need to expand your reach by

[05:29] constructing barracks, archery ranges, and resource generating buildings. Some of these are locked until others have been constructed first. Anyone who grew up with the likes of Starcraft, Command and Conquer, or more recently the Age of

[05:41] Empire series with their remakes and new titles will have a general gist of how Westeros plays out. To expand your workable land, War for Westeros breaks the overall map into capturable regions, each with a tower that can be held to

[05:55] allow your workers to start building in that region. In these small 1v one tailor battlefields that I had access to, these regions would also feature resourcerich points that would allow you to build more advanced versions of your

[06:08] production buildings on them, like the Lannisters mine shafts or Stark's windmills, allowing you to really bump up your production line. A few of these region spaces, though, had something that I found to be even cooler and in

[06:20] some respects that I found to be more impactful and important for getting that W. Camps. These camps spawn neutral hostile mobs that you can kill and will net you some gold as a reward. Rushing to get a squad of soldiers built and

[06:34] sent out to kill these mobs quickly became my go-to strategy during the early game. Its injection of resources saved my butt more than once by allowing unit to protect my new expansion or allow me to start constructing the next

[06:48] building in my tree. And the fact that they would respawn every couple minutes meant I could park some knights and archers nearby and use them as another used in another similar sort of game

[07:00] years ago, and one I hadn't thought about much until now. Westeros really kept reminding me of another amazing RTS game based on a

[07:12] fantasy book series, The Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth 2. Side note, it's depressingly a game that's unavailable digitally anywhere, at least officially. From how heroes behave to the more spread out building placement,

[07:26] and of course the random mobs you would want to kill, playing War for Westeros takes me back to leading the forces of Gondor against my friend and his Gondor against my friend and his annoying army of dwarves.

[07:40] Westeros is already presenting itself as an RTS that can be fun, regardless of whether you consider yourself a seasoned Battlefield general or just someone wanting to get vengeance for N Stark by slaughtering a whole host of lines.

[07:52] Against easier CPU adversaries in earlier games, I'd just click on and see what the armies were all about, and I did just fine. But the more time I spent and the harder the foes got, using hotkeys to assign orders to specific

[08:08] groups, playing to units strengths to counter specific enemies, and knowing when best to use my hero's abilities became critical to avoid getting crushed. And this was only with two of the factions. I can't wait to see how

[08:21] wild the clashes get and strategies will evolve once the rest of the armies are evolve once the rest of the armies are introduced. hope get tweaked or adjusted prior to final release, tool tips, for instance,

[08:38] are a bit sparse, such as giving you specifics on what the bonuses are when And the marker showing what direction your units will face is pretty tiny and easily obscured by details on the map

[08:50] like trees and grass. Perhaps my bigger request, though, is with the camera. Buildings are big. Armies can get equally imposing, and I frequently would find myself scrolling my mouse wheel back in a futile attempt to pull back

[09:03] even further. Give me a high up bird's eye, or I guess in this case, a three-eyed raven's eye view of the battlefield, and let me see the whole of battlefield, and let me see the whole of these epic clashes.

[09:19] shaping up to be an impressive RTS, especially for folks that are looking to scratch that base building fantasy itch. Still, from the other three launch factions to the campaign mode to even how larger matches will play out, all

[09:32] remain as much of a mystery as the release date for Winds of Winter. But base building, Playside looks to be poised to deliver quite the feast. For games, don't miss our recent hands-on looks at Marvel's Wolverine and Gears of

[09:47] War Eday singleplayer campaign. And for everything else in the world of video everything else in the world of video games, stick with IGN.