Forged Battalion, the RTS from the creators of C&C, has an Early Access release date

Forged Battalion is Petroglyph's next game—a highly customisable RTS where you're tasked with building and managing your own faction. Announced back in October, it's now got an Early Access release date: January 16, 2018.

Petroglyph is a studio formed of ex-Westwood developers. As you may already know, Westwood became famous for an RTS named Command & Conquer in the mid-'90s. This retro vibe is reflected in Forged Battalion's latest trailer. Observe:

In his hands-on earlier this year, Mike Cosimano praised the game's Faction Creator—where you craft your bespoke units—declaring it more accessible than vintage C&C. I found this excerpt from his piece particularly interesting:

The entire Petroglyph executive team are expats from Westwood Studios. The team is so committed to its Westwood origins that, when it came time to form Petroglyph, Legg convinced Kroegel to register the old Westwood phone number. "You could take my old business card from 1997 and still call me," Legg says. "People think older developers can get very set in their ways or not trying to advance the genre, but we’re always thinking of ways to get more people to play [RTS games],” Legg says.

If that was the impetus behind Faction Creator, it worked. I want to mess around with that system more. It’s too early to tell how battles will feel in the full game, but Petroglyph has made a strong pitch for the Faction Creator. Any system that gives players room for improvisation should be heartily encouraged, regardless of how the rest of the game might turn out.

Forged Battalion will launch on Steam's Early Access initiative on January 16, 2018.