With the sheer amount of games released on Steam every day, many games, especially those without large amounts of funding, fall by the wayside. “Art of War: Red Tides,” is a game in Steam Early Access with this exact problem.

Since many people avoid Early Access games, which are games available to the public but not yet a complete product, it was hard to find someone to play with. On top of that, when I played the game most of my teammates were not able to speak English. However, this was easy to overlook, as the first couple of hours of gameplay are engaging and addicting. Beyond that, however, the game starts to get pretty repetitive.  

Surprisingly for a free game, “Art of War” boasts some impressive graphics. The game is very cartoon-like, but also has an Asian-inspired artistic style. The way the game is set up reminds me of “Dota 2,” and “Art of War” even includes those call outs when you sweep the enemy team. Gameplay-wise though, it’s unlike any game I have ever played, which admittedly still gets boring after a few hours.

The goal is to destroy the enemies’ base, and to do so, players must spawn in a bunch of different types of troops using the game’s currency, called “soul essence.” This is where it eventually gets stale. This gameplay, where you essentially spawn in a ton of troops to try and overwhelm the enemy, is great for when players might need to kill time for waiting for something, and would make a much better mobile game than full-fledged PC game. However, it is still in beta, so more modes might come in the future.

“Art of War: Red Tides” is nowhere near a bad game, it just needs some work. It has a lot more potential than other full price games on Steam, and I sincerely hope it lives up to that. So, if you are bored and need a game to kill some time, this is it. Otherwise, it is a bit of a hit or miss.         

Platform: PC

Price: Free