When the trailer for Dwarfheim popped up during the PC Games Show earlier, I was underwhelmed. In fact, if anything, I was antiwhelmed. I love dwarves, as you probably know. And I love Dwarf Fortress. And when you really love something, you can get protective of it. Over the last few years, there's been an increasing trickle of management-ish games themed on dwarves, and while some (like the promising Hammerting) seem thoughtful and original, there's an awful lot of churned-out dross to pick through if you want to find the gems.
Dwarfheim, then, initially seemed to fall into the latter category - the trailer had a gruff Scots voiceover saying forgettable things about chieftains and clans and conquering, and the game's visuals had that balloony, buildings-rising-out-of-the-ground quality that instantly evokes garbage mobile games with names like Clash Of Empires Mobile, King's Conquest Online and Clans: Build Your Kingdom. The name "Dwarfheim" doesn't do a lot to dispel the notion, does it? But my goodness, did this trailer ever bury the lede. Because the thing about Dwarfheim - and I've not got time to properly think this assertion through, so apologies if I've missed something obvious - is that I think it's doing something entirely new with the real time strategy format. And if it does what it looks like it does, it could be amazing.
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