These days, space RTS titles typically take two approaches; they’ll either focus on smaller-scale tactics and individual ship management (such as through games like Nexus: The Jupiter Incident), or instead pull back for a much wider scale of strategy and fleet management. Genesis Rising more leans towards the second approach of constructing ships, sending numerous vessels into combat, and trying to take control of a given map – but the implementation for doing is just plain weird. Of course, don’t take that to mean a bad thing, as Dreamcatcher’s upcoming strategy title actually promises some very involved and addictive gameplay – but after spending those first few minutes with the game, one can’t help but stand in awe at the strange approach the game chooses to take. Thanks to some time I landed playing an early multiplayer-focused build of the game, I’ve had a chance to get some hands-on experience to grasp the game’s nuances a little more directly, so here’s my field report.

To provide a little background, Genesis Rising takes place in a rather unstable time period, deep in the future, where humanity has decided it’s the greatest thing in the universe, and is crushing anything else that thinks otherwise. This is accomplished through their mastery of biological engineering, which enables them to create living machines for spacecraft, and then modify them with a bundle of genetic blue-prints which can let them overcome just about any kind of situation. The end result is something closer to watching gigantic whales in space duking it out, rather than the expected battleships, nuclear warheads, and artillery cannons. The merit of this approach gameplay-wise is that it creates a military economy reliant on “blood”, which is used for just about everything. In addition, players must not only create individual ships, but also kit them out with an assortment of upgrades, through genetic mutations. Yup, that's right – you engage in combat with living ships, and upgrade them through genetic manipulation to get the upper hand. Basically, you've stepped into a bizzaro-version of Homeworld 2.

What I’ve played of the game so far sadly hasn’t revealed any of the deeper singleplayer or plot-oriented aspects, but the multiplayer gaming I toyed around with did provide a strong look into the gameplay. On a typical match, each player gets to choose from one of three factions (Military, Inquisition, or Defiance), and then starts with a single station and a small garrison of ships (as well as a mothership). The station generates blood for the player’s fleet, which resource-collectors must harvest and transport to the player’s mothership in order to gain resources (or they can just steal it from ‘dead’ enemy ships). That forms the basis to one part of the game’s economy, but the other major part is in handling gene management.

Players have a dedicated screen available where they can construct a variety of genes on the fly to add to their ships, and this ultimately plays a crucial role that makes or breaks a player during combat. Available genes range up to everything from basic weapon augmentations and speed enhancers, up to more specialized long-range artillery, defensive screens, or even those that provide some more exotic abilities like crippling enemy ships or taking control of them. It almost comes down to a kind of card game, because most types of genes also require a specific defense to counter, so planning ahead is essential if you plan to survive (especially due to a fairly low unit cap and the fact that each ship only has a limited number of gene slots, depending on it’s size). One other interesting mechanic I noticed was trading. Not only were there assorted NPC ships and stations on the map, but it was actually also possible to trade with some of these teams for ships and genes, so it’ll be interesting to see how this turns out in the final game. (especially when combined with the ability to steal genes from enemy ships).

The combat pacing with the game isn’t bad either – it’s mostly a focus on building up a small fleet of ships, kitting them out with the best possible genes, and then finding the best way to deploy them against your enemy without sacrificing your own defenses. Pretty much standard-fare, but the fact that the unit capacity is so low does mean that a lot more thought does need to be put into a given strategy – I’m curious to see if any changes will be made on this in the future. One thing to note too is that the game is only “2-and-a-half-D” – technically there’s no way to adjust the Z-axis when issuing orders and everything moves on the same plane, which is a bit of an odd limitation given how so many games have moved beyond this. I don’t consider it to be any kind of major issue, but I’m wondering if the long-term implications on this might have a negative impact on the gameplay. We’ll see.

Also worth noting is that the AI is also pretty intelligent. In a few matches against AI-based enemies, I found they'd automatically move their ships to dodge some of my longer-range attacks, and rally together at regular intervals to send fleets of ships against me – although ultimately the real point to this beta was in fighting with other players, and this was where I saw some true creativity come into play. Most players would just load their ships down with basic weapon upgrades and charge them into battle, but I saw a few cases where someone would send a ship loaded to the brim with speed upgrades, throw them in first to distract my defenses (especially annoying since using a special gene ability against an enemy takes some time to recharge) and then have their heavier-hitting firepower deliver an immediate follow-up blow. I did however particularly enjoy being able to upgrade the vast defenses at my main station, as this gave me a lot more leverage to help fend off assaults. Players can expect a lot of interesting tactical flexibility as a result of the gene system, and this should really spice up how space combat plays out (rather than just being a contest to see who can pump out the first wave of Dreadnaughts).