Iron Guard: A Salvation Review – A strong foundation, but requires hardening

Real-time strategy games are back in the VR space. Iron Guard: Salvation captures the magic of classic RTS titles in a virtual environment?

Iron Guard: Salvation was a follow-up to previous entries in 2021, and was simply titled “Iron Guard.” Developer XLAB Digital had obvious plans for a sequel, but this is a serviceable VR tower defense game. Draw inspiration from classic RTS games like Starcraft and Command & Conquer to create something that aims to be a more in-depth experience.

That inspiration is clear from the moment you begin to salvation. The briefing is provided by a grumpy Space Marine type, and the voices that call warnings during matches are surprisingly similar to StarCraft’s computerized audio. The rest of the sound design and music are fine, but sadly I don’t remember.

Aesthetically, salvation packs a retro physical vibe. Set in planetary and lunar universes like Pluto and Europe, the buildings and ships use 90s sci-fi styles that remind us of the colonial war on PS1. This is not a bad thing at all.

Despite the sci-fi epic trap, there is little story here. What we were given is a general plot that involves the robot getting hooked and attacking people. Of course, players will be charged with stopping them. It’s a shame whether it’s inspiring or original. Especially when compared to the antics of Starcraft’s vast space opera and the alternative history of Boncar in the Command & Conquest Games.

Approach each map from a “Godview” perspective that overlooks the battlefield. However, Iron Guard: Salvation also encourages direct involvement in combat using drones controlled by the right-hand controller.

This drone not only acts as a scout, but also has weapons that direct enemies. It also includes all the important information, including the health of the base, the number of resources you have, the drone’s own energy level, and more. Here we come to one of the iron guards: the main issues of salvation – to see any of this information, you need to put your head down and look, and raise your arms at an awkward angle. It’s not comfortable.

The gameplay of salvation owes a lot to the classic tower defense. You can access several types of turrets that can slow down enemies, fire fire guns for widespread damage, or use plasma turrets to rob individual enemies. These are mounted on platforms that allow you to conveniently move around during the battle. This gives you more flexibility while maintaining the tower defense framework.

These missions have welcome diversity, such as evacuation missions, mining challenges, and even boss encounters, to avoid becoming repetitive survival tasks. The impact of the RTS of Salvation is on resource management for unit construction and upgrade. You need to learn to use more powerful “hero” units.

Each of them – the Grave, Irina, Mitchell – all have special unique abilities that require tactical use to achieve victory over the incoming waves of the robot’s enemies. From trajectory lasers in the graveyard to the chemical warfare options Mitchell offers, these abilities can be upgraded and altered using the skill tree that forms the majority of the game’s progression.

Developers keep their user interface as clean as possible, so there is no real HUD to talk about. Leave the drone as the only way to track these important numbers. We will also introduce the question of perspective. Are players like gods in the sky moving their turrets and vehicles like toys, or are they directly involved in battles on earth? XLAB Digital can’t help but feel that it is necessary to select lanes and place the player’s perspective on the ground level or use the “Military Sand Table” approach used in many other RTS titles.

Iron Guard: Despite the obvious influence of the RTS game, the roots of salvation lie in the Tower Defense Game. This has limiting factors. Many tower defense games are like puzzles. Understand where to place it and whether the level will be resolved.

One area where salvation is missing is comparing it to RTS titles inspired by the lack of multiplayer. Many RTS games live well beyond the expected life expectancy due to community involvement. Without this multiplayer input it’s hard to imagine coming back over and over again. Once the level is “solved”, there is little else to do. Multiplayer brings the game to life even more.

To make sure I didn’t miss anything, I invited a friend who was a semi-professional Starcraft II player and content creator. Similarly, he believed the game would benefit from a more strategic focus. There, it’s easy to adapt to things wrong and come up with a unique strategy. Now it feels more like a puzzle game than a true RTS experience. This can be improved by focusing on the tower’s defense and leaning further on the RTS mechanic.

Iron Guard: Salvation – Final Verdict

Iron Guard: Salvation offers more than a simple tower defense title in VR, but it’s not enough to make it a full-fledged RTS. There’s a good foundation here and there’s a welcome mission variety, but the nasty design choices from XLAB Digital and lack of depth are hampering it. There are no multiplayer options, which allows the game to maximize its potential.

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