Back in the early 2010s, two massive obsessions of mine were in an eternal war for my free time: if I wasn’t glued to the TV watching Game of Thrones air its iconic early seasons on HBO, I was glued to my monitor playing StarCraft II. In fact, I built my very first gaming PC specifically for StarCraft. For the better part of two years, RTS games completely ruled my life. When I wasn’t grinding the ladder, I was tuning in to pro matches. #TeamZERG
As that golden era faded, though, it left a massive, RTS-shaped hole in my gaming habits. Sure, StarCraft II is still played today, Age of Empires has made incredible strides, and the gaming industry has been gifted an embarrassment of riches when it comes to grand strategy titles like the Total War and Crusader Kings franchises. But as brilliant as those games are, they’ve never quite scratched that same itch I’ve had for a fast-paced, high-APM real-time strategy game.
So when Game of Thrones: War for Westeros was first revealed with a beautiful world-building cinematic, I assumed it would be yet another grand strategy epic. However, with every new piece of information that came out, it started to look more and more like it could actually be the dream game of my 2010s self. So when I was offered a chance to play an early preview demo, I had to see it for myself: can my ultimate fantasy universe be the catalyst to finally reignite my love for the RTS genre? Or is this double dose of nostalgia better left in the past?
From Mouseburg to the Iron Throne.
Bringing Westeros to life this time are the folks over at Playside Games. This team is becoming somewhat of an Australian powerhouse, having started from some humble mobile game beginnings. More recently, they brought us the fantastic arcade action game Kill Knight and, just this year, dropped one of our highest-rated games of 2026, Mouse: P.I. For Hire. Perhaps more importantly for War for Westeros, though, they are the team that took over the reins of the ill-fated Warcraft 3 Reforged post-launch and, with the help of the community, molded it into something that fans actually enjoyed with patch 2.0.
With all that being said, this is definitely their most ambitious project to date. Taking on a franchise with a large, devoted fanbase that is not known for having a stellar video game track record, while also trying to rebuild a genre that is seemingly well past its heyday, is no small task. It will end up being either feasting at King’s Landing or straight to the Wall for these brave Aussies, and after over 10 hours with this demo, I think it’s safe to say they can leave their Night’s Watch cloaks at home.
Realizing the Realm
In order for this game to find success, it is going to heavily rely on two things: Playside Games’ mastery over the RTS genre and how well they can leverage the IP. The first thing you notice when you boot up the game is just how well they nailed the latter. The game is perhaps one of the most beautiful RTS games I’ve played, with very high levels of detail in the environments, structures, and units. However, it’s more than just a pretty face, as it’s also incredibly authentic. The mud- and blood-soaked wetlands we got to play in felt right at home in the Seven Kingdoms, and of course, the exceptional Game of Thrones theme song was there to bring the world to life.
That’s just the high-level stuff, though. The love on display for George R.R. Martin’s world goes much deeper than that, with the voice lines and models all feeling like they belong. The models are very detailed and easy to tell apart, with the team even going the extra mile to make the voice-over, unit designs, and even the UI match the faction you are playing.
One disadvantage the team has when adapting Game of Thrones to an RTS is that their factions are all made up of armies of men. It’s a lot harder to tell a Stark from a Lannister at a bird’s-eye view than it is a Terran Marine from a Zergling. So the level of care taken with the game’s presentation is not only nice to see, but vital to the way the game plays.
Harsh and Honest North, Soft and Deceitful South
In the demo, we were limited to just 1v1 duels against AI or other testers, playing as either the Starks or the Lannisters. The game is definitely more of a classic RTS than a grand strategy game. However, it’s not quite StarCraft, but perhaps more emblematic of The Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle-earth or Warcraft, where more emphasis is put into your army and the heroes who lead it, rather than the economics and macro side of things For example, you do have peons that will build and repair your resource generators, barracks, and tech buildings, but that is all they do. There is no need to mass produce them and send them out to cut wood or mine gold. They just build the buildings and the resources pile in. This is a welcome change, as it doesn’t remove the macro game from the equation. It just puts more emphasis on what’s on the tin. I mean, the game ain’t called Economy for Westeros.
An interesting twist is that, in order to have an effective economy, you need to make use of specific neutral areas on the map that provide your resource-generating buildings with bonus yields. You can only collect resources from those nodes if you control the area’s watchtower, which you can only do with military units. You can actually win the entire match by holding these points if your opponent decides to turtle up at home. In my experience, this leads to quick battles that only escalate in scale as the game goes on.
Combat in this game is sublime. The first time I sent a pack of Stark cavalry units charging at a group of Lannister soldiers, only to watch them all get knocked down and thrown out of formation thanks to the game’s physics system, I knew they had something here. It’s a very active combat system where you will control large armies made up of different units with strengths and weaknesses, setting them to control groups and strategizing when and where they will strike. You also have to manage when to use different active abilities, which nearly all non-basic units have, that can turn the tide of any fight.
Micromanagement is made a little easier, though, due to the fact that spawning one “unit” of a specific type often actually gives you a group of those units. So if you have ten spearmen, it’s really only two different units to manage. This is great for making the battles still feel epic without army management getting too overwhelming, especially for new or relapsed players like myself.
All Just Spokes on a Wheel
The most important units you will be managing are the Heroes. These are the backbone of your entire military and are something you are going to want to get out early and often. Like a true faction-based RTS, the battles live and die by their asymmetry, and these heroes are the biggest differentiators.
They level up as the game goes on, becoming stronger and unlocking more abilities. However, you need to make sure not to lose them in battle, as respawning them not only takes time but gets a lot more expensive the higher level they become. It’s also just incredibly satisfying to have Jon Snow raise his sword in the air and inspire the men of the North to fight. The different strategies you will find yourself employing for each faction go beyond just the heroes themselves, though. Early-game units share a lot in common, but the further down the tech tree you go, the more the differences start to show and the rock-paper-scissors aspect of any good RTS game comes into play.
They do a really good job of tying the uniqueness of each faction’s gameplay mechanics to the lore as well. So if you play as the Lannisters, you have the ability to use their trade prowess to trade one resource for another to fit your needs, and your scout unit has the ability to stealth into an enemy base to try and reveal their plans, just like the Lannister spy network from the show. Whereas the Starks are able to negotiate parleys with the Wildlings and bring them into the fold, as well as control direwolves for some quick assaults.
What Do We Say to the Death of RTS? Not Today.
All in all, I adored my time with Game of Thrones: War for Westeros. This is exactly what I was looking for as a lapsed fan of the classic RTS games of old, as well as one of the most authentic Game of Thrones experiences you can have in a video game. There are still a lot of questions left unanswered, however, such as how the Daenerys Targaryen faction will balance having dragons in the fold, although perhaps the rest of the Seven Kingdoms struggling to deal with them would be “Lore Accurate”.
I’m also very interested in finding out what we can expect from the campaign. With a world dripping with so many fantastic battles and gripping narratives, I have pretty high hopes for it, but Playside has been very mum on that aspect so far. For now, though, I’m going to squeeze a few more rounds of this game in before they take it away from me! For more on Game of Thrones: War for Westeros, stay tuned to Seasoned Gaming!