PlaySide Studios based its upcoming real-time strategy game Game of Thrones: War for Westeros on the hit HBO series, using the likeness of actors like Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Kit Harington, and Emilia Clarke for the hero units you can field in battle. But while the first gameplay trailer emphasizes familiar faces fighting for the Iron Throne, it also hides a monster that was referenced in the series but never appeared on screen.
“If you study it closely, which I don’t expect everyone to do, you’ll notice that the White Walker faction has spiders in the background as part of their army,” game director Ryan McMahon told Polygon in a virtual interview. “That’s something which has only ever been spoken about in tales by Old Nan in season 1, and that’s an actual unit in the game.”
McMahon said PlaySide’s first game, 2021’s Age of Darkness: Final Stand, was heavily inspired by the Game of Thrones franchise. The team has watched the series and read the books multiple times, and played the A Song of Ice & Fire Tabletop Miniatures Game and A Game of Thrones: The Board Game. They looked to the books for some army details that the show didn’t get into, but whenever there was a divergence, they followed the show’s canon. But for those who didn’t love how the series ended, a big part of the game is letting players change the fate of the Seven Kingdoms.
“It’s a sandbox, player-led campaign where you start with a territory that you are in on a map of Westeros that you have to go out and conquer, as well as some other objectives on the political side of things with high-stakes alliances and betrayals that determine which factions and which hero from that faction sits on the Iron Throne in the end,” McMahon said.
Claiming territory takes players into skirmish matches, which are determined by seizing objectives. Conquering bits of land is essential to gathering more resources to build your army so you can win the fight. Taking land in the demo often involved fighting forces belonging to minor houses, but the full game will offer other ways to interact with neutral factions.
“Borders play such a big part in Game of Thrones,” McMahon said. “Minor lords are squabbling throughout the show about what mills belong to them, and where does their land start and end? Territory acts as a great progression pathway, so rather than being able to just rush out on the map, build whatever you want, and overwhelm your opponent, you have to pace yourself, get your economy going, get your production going, and then expand out.”
Prioritizing fun over balance
War for Westeros doesn’t follow a specific timeline to restrict access to what heroes players have when, allowing them to create team-ups and rivalries that never happened in the series. Heroes are divided into warriors, commanders, and support characters, so there’s room for a front-line force like The Mountain, a leader like Tywin Lannister, and a sneaky assassin like Arya Stark. While the White Walkers can deploy powerful units like giants and ice spiders, they have fewer heroes. The Starks have a relative advantage on the hero front since both Robb Stark and Jon Snow can recruit their direwolves to fight at their side.
While PlaySide looked to classic RTS series like StarCraft, Age of Empires, and The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth when developing War for Westeros, the studio wanted competitive matches to feel more like Super Smash Bros. or Marvel Rivals.
“They don’t focus on competitive balance purity, they focus a lot more on a fun-first philosophy,” McMahon said. “We have dragons that are going to be really strong. We have White Walkers that can raise the dead. We have wildfire, which is obviously super explosive and dangerous, and we have giants and mammoths that are swinging their clubs around and knocking everyone everywhere. That’s fun and exciting to watch, and we want to make sure that we put that first.”
Part of that fun will be terrifying the arachnephobic by unleashing servants of the Night King from the scariest stories told around the fires of Winterfell. You’ll be able to choose your own path to the Iron Throne when Game of Thrones: War for Westeros releases in early 2027.