Dying Breed Review Summary

Authentic C&C Homage: Players overwhelmingly praise the game for successfully capturing the essence, gameplay, and nostalgic feel of classic Command & Conquer (Tiberium Dawn). It's seen as a true love letter to the 90s RTS genre, evoking strong feelings of nostalgia.

Promising & Passionate Development: The game shows significant promise, with players recognizing the clear passion and ambition of the developers. There's excitement for future content and improvements, indicating a strong belief in the game's potential.

Hilarious & Cheesy Cutscenes: The game's cutscenes, featuring live-action actors and a deliberately cheesy, over-the-top style, are a major highlight. Players find them incredibly funny and a perfect callback to the aesthetic of older RTS games.

High-Quality Visuals & Art Style: Players commend the game's art direction, sprite work, and in-game visuals, noting their high quality and how well they capture the desired style. The pixel art is specifically highlighted as being well-executed.

Overall Enjoyable Experience: Many players express general enjoyment and satisfaction with the game, finding it fun, engaging, and a worthwhile experience. It's considered a genuine labor of love by the developers.

Poor Gameplay & Visuals: Players report that the game's actual gameplay, camera, and overall visual presentation (graphics, UI, art design) do not meet expectations set by promotional material. Many elements feel unpolished, slow, and outdated, leading to a generally unsatisfying experience.

Severe Unit Imbalance: The game suffers from major balancing issues, with several units being either overpowered or underpowered. Examples include rocket troopers one-shotting infantry, riflemen easily destroying tanks, and expensive units being ineffective, which breaks the expected RTS combat dynamics.

Terrible Unit Pathfinding: A significant issue is the extremely poor pathfinding for units, especially armored vehicles. Units frequently get stuck, move clunkily, or behave erratically, making tactical control frustrating and difficult.

Slow Movement & Responsiveness: Players are frustrated by the slow movement speed of units and vehicles, as well as the sluggish turning radius of vehicles. This lack of responsiveness makes controlling units feel cumbersome and negatively impacts gameplay flow.

Unfinished State & Missing Features: The game feels incomplete, resembling an alpha version rather than a release. Basic RTS features are missing, and the overall polish of the UI and visual design is lacking, suggesting the game is not ready for launch.

High difficulty level: Players find the game challenging, with a high difficulty curve even on medium settings, suggesting a need for strategic play.

Infantry are too fragile: Players report that infantry units are extremely vulnerable to various enemy units, including tanks and bazookas, making them feel fragile and easily eliminated.

Diverse gameplay modes: The game offers more than just RTS elements, incorporating base building, resource management, and unit skirmishes, providing a direct and engaging gameplay feel.

Two distinct factions: The game features two factions, each with general differences, adding variety to gameplay and strategic choices.

High quality mission design: The game's mission design is praised for its quality, offering engaging and well-crafted scenarios.

Performance issues on Linux: While some players report perfect performance on Linux via Proton, others experience significant FPS drops and slowdowns, indicating inconsistent optimization for the platform.

Slow camera movement: Players find the camera movement speed to be excessively slow, particularly on maps lacking radar, which negatively impacts gameplay experience in specific missions like 4-1 RECOVERY.

Missing V-Sync option: A requested feature is the addition of vertical synchronization, which suggests players are experiencing screen tearing or other visual artifacts due to its absence.

Wait for full release: Many players acknowledge the game's potential but advise waiting for the full release or further development due to its current 'underbaked' state and need for polish and balancing. Some have refunded, while others are holding onto it with hope for future improvements.

Great for C&C fans: The game is highly recommended for fans of classic Command & Conquer (C&C) and other 90s RTS titles. Players who appreciate the original C&C experience will likely enjoy this game.

Positive initial reception: Despite calls to wait, some players have had a very positive initial experience, recommending the game and giving it high scores.

Support indie RTS developers: Some players express a desire to support independent RTS game developers, either by purchasing the game now or keeping an eye on its progress.

Indie game with potential: Players recognize this as an indie game in early development and express support for the developers, indicating a willingness to follow its progress and eagerly await the full release. There's a clear appreciation for the team's passion.

RTS genre appeal: There's a strong desire for more RTS games, with players noting the developers' loyalty to the genre. The game is seen as a parody of TibDawn, appealing to fans of classic RTS titles like C&C, despite some 'jank' reminiscent of the originals.

Unit visibility issues: Players report issues with unit selection boxes, potentially linked to ultra-wide monitors, and suggest adding highlighting for enemies obscured by environmental elements like trees.

Desire for more maps: Players hope for a variety of maps, including workshop support for skirmish modes, to enhance replayability.

Music style preference: One player noted that the game's heavy metal music style doesn't quite align with their preferences, contrasting it with Frank's music.