"After three years in early access, Age of Darkness: Final Stand hobbles across the finish line, but as someone who played it shortly after its early access release, I cannot say I enjoy it anymore now than I did then."
Singleplayer.
Co-op Multiplayer.
This review primarily focuses on how Age of Darkness: Final Stand changed from its early access release to version 1. 0.
Please read our original early access review for a full review of Age of Darkness: Final Stand.
As we covered in our ongoing coverage of Age of Darkness: Final Stand during early access, it was a better game in 2021 than it was throughout most of its early access journey.
While version 1.0 is slightly better than the last two years of early access, it is still far less enjoyable than it was in 2021 for various reasons, which we will explore below.
One of the main reasons Age of Darkness: Final Stand grew worse during its early access period was the developer’s insistence on making unnecessary changes to core gameplay mechanics.
When Age of Darkness: Final Stand entered early access in October 2021, its economy was close to perfect, its pacing was excellent, and while more unit types and buildings were a welcome addition, much of what was added to the core gameplay loop since that time has made the game far less enjoyable to play and did not so much as make it more difficult; rather, it just made it more tedious.
I am all for creating challenging content. I love challenging games, but the challenge should come from the enemies you face, not the player being nerfed into the ground.
A perfect example of this is how the developers have all but decimated the player economy in Survival mode to make the mode more challenging instead of allowing the player to retain access to a healthy economy and increasing the strength or number of enemies attacking the player, which would have not only been challenging but actually very enjoyable.
While this may sound like two methods to accomplish the same outcome, that could not be further from the truth.
By weakening the player’s economy, they are forced to spend more time waiting for the resources to build units and expand their base than actually engaging with the enemy or exploring the map.
The original pacing of Age of Darkness: Final Stand during its early access release window allowed players to spend more time building their base and actively engaging with the enemy than is currently possible, which ultimately made the experience far more enjoyable.
When Age of Darkness: Final Stand launched, I loved it and played as much as possible.
However, despite being a more content-rich game overall in 2025, I struggle to find motivation to play, knowing that I will spend more time waiting for resources to be gathered than fighting the enemy or exploring the map.
While I am sure the developers thought they were doing what was right for their game, this came at the cost of ignoring player feedback.
With each nerf to the economy and slowing down of progression, the community would offer feedback on why it was a bad idea, only for the developers to ignore the feedback and continue to modify the economy in an effort to make resource gathering even slower, this cycle happened repeated over six times before shrinking sales and diminishing community support forced the developers to halt their unintentional decimation of Age of Darkness: Final Stand.
In response to negative feedback and dwindling sales, the developers introduced frequently requested units, additional heroes, and community-requested mechanics while slightly undoing the immense damage they caused to pacing through their previous heavy-handed micromanagement of the in-game economy.
Unfortunately, it was not enough to restore Age of Darkness: Final Stand to how fun it was to play in October 2021, but at least the community could breathe easy knowing that the game they loved had ended its downward spiral, or at least so we hoped.
I must go on record as saying I like the concept of factions; they add flavour to any strategy game. However, PlaySide is not large enough or perhaps not experienced enough to split its attention in so many different directions, especially after parting ways with the publisher Team 17 in April 2024, which would have undoubtedly placed additional funding worries on top of the growing pile of problems that made up the majority of Age of Darkness: Final Stand’s time in early access.
As a result of focusing their attention on multiple modes and factions, Age of Darkness: Final Stand is far less enjoyable than it could have been due to the developers having split their time between creating three unique factions instead of allowing the player to benefit from the new units, heroes and bonuses unique to each faction.
I must say that the developers did a great job with the single-player campaign. While it suffers from the same pacing issues as the rest of the game, it is well-made, with likeable characters, gorgeous cutscenes, and a well-written plot. Honestly, it is one of the best things about version 1.0.
The problem is that splitting development resources between the procedurally generated single-player survival mode, single-player campaign, and multiplayer co-op mode has made all three feel a little undercooked.
I am confident the developers could have picked any two of those modes and made a well-polished product. However, trying to split their attention once again in three ways has resulted in an ultimately lower-quality product than would have otherwise exited early access.
Age of Darkness: Final Stand is a real time strategy video game developed and published by PlaySide, it was released on 15 January 2025 and retails for $27.99.
Age of Darkness: Final Stand is available exclusively on PC.
The following peripherals are officially supported:
Age of Darkness: Final Stand is unrated and contains:
After playing Age of Darkness: Final Stand version 1.0, I must admit I am not impressed.
While I liked the campaign a lot, the core gameplay loop is still nowhere near as good as it was in 2021. Despite offering many more units, heroes, and mechanics that were not available at launch, pacing mitigates any improvement they would have brought to the game.
Ultimately, I am glad that I was able to raise the score slightly from 6/10 to 7/10 with the release of 1.0.
However, it is still a far cry from the 9/10 we awarded when it first launched into early access in October 2021.
Unfortunately, without a new design philosophy, I cannot see Age of Darkness: Final Stand ever reclaiming that rating, let alone surpassing it and becoming the 10/10 it was on track to be before the developers fixed what wasn’t broken and made an excellent title, a barely passable one.
While this review may seem harsh, that was not my intention; rather, any appearance of harshness is because I am disappointed to see one of the most promising RTS games I have ever played in early access end up in such a sorry state.
While I could say many good things about Age of Darkness: Final Stand, we have already said them in our previous review, which I encourage you to read to get a full perspective on why you should or should not play it.
We found Age of Darkness: Final Stand to be a good game, meaning it is likely to be enjoyable for most players, despite having a few areas that could be improved upon.
