Dying Breed could end up being a real gem for RTS fans - once it's a bit further along

Welcome back, commander. Dying Breed is a new retro-inspired real time strategy game from Sarnayer / MicroProse Software out now in Early Access.

Set in a timeline where during World War 2 a whole lot of nukes were fired making the northern part of the world uninhabitable, a new war is brewing — and something about mutants? All hell is about to break loose. Dying Breed is very much inspired by the classic Command & Conquer / Red Alert series from Westwood (now EA), complete with a FMV (Full-motion video) intro along with FMV mission briefings, and it features two completely different story campaigns to play through.

Neither the publisher nor their separate press team replied to a key request from GamingOnLinux, so I went ahead of picked up a personal copy as for me it was too good to pass up. I adore these types of classic base-building strategy games, since I grew up playing the likes of Command & Conquer (amongst many others at the time). Additionally, it seems shortly before release the mentions of Linux and macOS support were actually silently removed - so you'll need Proton to play it on Linux systems. (Update: their PR team sent a key over right after this was published)

My initial thought is that it's like playing a weird mirror-universe version of the classics. The FMV cut-scenes are incredibly cheesy, to the point they're actually a little on the charming side. They're campy and stupid but anyone who likes the classic will probably appreciate them as I did. They've also sprinkled in some short animated scenes too, although they're a fair bit on the rough side they still nicely add to the experience, and in fact reminded me a little of the animated scenes between missions in the 1997 RTS game Dark Colony. With a little flavour of the 1997 RTS game KKND for the mutant side of things too.

Taking all the elements together, it's a clear labour of love for classic games from the developer pulling in elements from many different strategy games into a strange but inviting RTS. Very challenging though, some of the missions can feel a little bit too punishing even early on. Seems like the missions are nice and varied though, so it's an interesting challenge but it clearly needs some balancing for the first few missions at the very least to ease players in a bit more.

The pathfinding seriously needs some big improvements though, units get stuck quite often on everything which is quite a nuisance and often just decide to walk across the ore you're gathering (which kills you) instead of walking around it. Fixing up the pathfinding should probably be the first thing they fix up during Early Access as it really harms the experience here. Unit movement overall just needs to be smarter, like medics running out constantly in front of the rest of your group - but then I assume you're supposed to use control groups to manage the separate infantry types on a micro-management level. That certainly would be more like the classic C&C games.

Since it's in Early Access and not finished, I'll refrain from giving any true opinion on it, but thankfully for now it does appear to work very nicely with Proton 9.0-4 tested on Kubuntu 25.04. No issues at all in terms of stability or Linux-specific bugs so far.

In the current version it offers:

• 2 playable factions, each with unique units and structures.
• 22 story missions (38 maps total).
• 43 FMV and 3D videos (25 minutes of cinematics, including intro).
• 70+ units and 58 structures, from fortifications to hero units.
• 23 live actors, 75 3D models, 19 original music tracks (83 minutes total), and 1000+ voice lines.

They have a clear roadmap on what's planned to come to the game including 12 new missions, modding support, performance improvements, an AI overhaul and more.

Very keen to see more from it as it continues through Early Access.

YouTube videos require cookies, you must accept their cookies to view. View cookie preferences.
Accept Cookies & Show   Direct Link