Publisher Slitherine Software is rolling out the red carpet for Stargate: Timekeepers, as the video game draws closer to its much anticipated release.
Today the studio devoted an hour-long livestream event to showcasing the game. Hosted by brand manager Francesco Tebaldi and featuring senior producer Neil McKenna, art director Sonia Wiśniewska, and Slitherine Poland head Patryk Nosek, the event showcased the game’s characters, environments, and nearly 30 minutes of gameplay through one of the game’s 14 missions.
Stargate: Timekeepers is a real-time stealth tactics game for PC. Each character brings their own unique abilities, from combat to stealth to the ability to utilize remote machines. (Take a look at the five main characters below.)
Tebaldi announced today that the game’s 14 stages will be released in two parts, Season 1 Part 1 and Season 1 Part 2 (both included in a single purchase). Each is comprised of seven missions — or “episodes.” There’s no word yet on a release date, but Part 1 is looking very complete here.
Launching today is the public beta for the game and interested players can sign up today at Slitherine.com.
“The first four missions introduce the range of characters that we’ve seen today,” McKenna said. “The game teaches you about their skills, what they can do, [and] how they work well with other characters.” As new characters are added to the team the game opens up with more options for how to approach a mission.
Along with the gameplay the studio also unveiled a big batch of new images from the game, including screenshots and terrain overviews for all seven missions from Part 1. The seven missions are:
- Episode 1: Battle of Antarctica
Episode 2: Resistance
Episode 3: In Plain Sight
Episode 4: Crossfire
Episode 5: A Hiding Place
Episode 6: Grand Larceny
Episode 7: Circles
Scroll down to see images for each environment.
Timekeepers has been in development for more than two years, and was originally targeting a 2022 release. Slitherine has identified story issues as the reason for the delay, as this will be one of the most story and character-heavy projects the studio has published to date.
The Stargate in Episode 7 might reveal how the game’s time travel elements come about: the short pillars in front of the gate resemble those from the Ancients’ time loop technology, as seen in “Window of Opportunity.”
The story picks up in the debris field following the Battle of Antarctica, at the end of Stargate SG-1’s seventh season. Players take charge of Colonel Eva McCain and her team (complete with full voice acting) in an original story that will see them hopping around the Stargate timeline.
In Mission #2, showcased today, McCain joins with a Hak’tyl Jaffa character named A’ta to help her people escape the Goa’uld occupation of their world.
There is plenty of Stargate goodness in the game, from familiar weapons like the staff weapon and zat gun to the mimetic device, which allows one character to copy an enemy’s image and impersonate them.
“We’ve taken the flavor of the show and tried to stay true to that,” McKenna said. “We’re very much trying to tell a Stargate story to Stargate fans. And to do that we’re trying to stay as close as we can to the tone of the source material.”
The game allows players to switch between different characters and skills to try and accomplish the mission, using a variety of tactics to take down enemy soldiers and make their way to the mission objective. Various difficulty modes will also increase the challenge for more experienced players, adding replayability for previous missions.
Learn more about Stargate: Timekeepers in GateWorld’s Video Games section, and stay tuned for our ongoing coverage of the game.
What do you think of Timekeepers so far? Is this one you plan to pick up?
CHARACTERS
Colonel Eva McCain (Team Leader)
A’ta (Hak’tyl Jaffa)
Max Bolton (Sniper)
Sam Watson (Spy)
Derreck Harper (Civilian Scientist)
ENVIRONMENTS
Episode 1: Battle of Antarctica
Episode 2: Resistance
Episode 3: In Plain Sight
Episode 4: Crossfire
Episode 5: A Hiding Place
Episode 6: Grand Larceny
Episode 7: Circles
Great, PC…. Means I’ll never get to play it. 🙄😒
Laptops are cheap these days
Let’s hope the attractive female character survives Twitter.
Which one? The one literally named McCain, or the one who looks like her shirt is busting open if you are scrolling fast?
Sounds awesome! I think it could be a long lasting game, when there are no storyline issues
Looking forward to this one. I’ve been waiting for a Stargate game for a VERY long time.
The character designs do concern me. It has my woke radar is pinging…And the last thing I want is wokeness in Stargate.
Stargate: a series with a strong black lead, multiracial representations, and the first major antagonists are Egyptians. Where was your woke radar then?
Lol have you ever seen the show? There was a whole episode about about not being racist Nazis and a whole arc about how Maybe Fundamentalist Religion Isn’t Always So Great. Strong black lead and plenty of diverse supporting characters, plenty of interesting female characters. And that’s just SG1. Nothing I’ve seen here is groundbreaking compared to the show, I think you’ll be fine.
I’m not in the general habit of playing games on PC (while I do have a laptop that is certainly strong enough for it, actually it’s build for it) and I’m not a fan of strategy games either but maybe I’ll pick this up if it’s not too expensive and most certainly will not do so if one has to purchase in-game whatevers to level up (though I don’t think that’ll be the case for this, or am I wrong).
So far, the game doesn’t appeal to me. I’ve never been too interested in strategy games, and this looks very generic to me. Of course, I could be very wrong. I know it is unlikely, but I am hoping this will encourage more Stargate games.