Iron Harvest

Iron Harvest is a 2020 real-time strategy (RTS) game developed by KING Art Games and published by Deep Silver. It stands out as one of the most visually striking strategy games of its era, thanks entirely to its setting: the 1920+ universe created by acclaimed Polish artist Jakub Różalski (the same universe that inspired the massive hit board game, Scythe).

Mechanically, the game is a massive, loving homage to Relic Entertainment’s Company of Heroes. It completely trades the fast-paced, high-APM tank-rushing of StarCraft for slower, highly tactical, squad-based combat where utilizing physical cover and positioning is the absolute key to survival—all set to the backdrop of colossal, smoking dieselpunk mechs tearing through European farmhouses.

Setting and Narrative

The game takes place in an alternate-history 1920s, shortly after the end of the Great War. Rather than developing advanced tanks, the nations of Europe poured their resources into building massive, lumbering, diesel-powered walking machines.

The single-player narrative is widely considered one of the strongest RTS campaigns of the modern era. It features three massive, interconnected campaigns that tell a single overarching story from three different perspectives. The plot revolves around a shadowy, global terrorist organization known as Fenris, who are manipulating the precarious post-war peace to ignite a second, even more devastating global conflict. You follow deeply personal, character-driven storylines, such as Anna Kos (a Polanian sniper fighting alongside her pet bear, Wojtek) and the seasoned, world-weary Saxon commander Gunter von Duisburg.

Gameplay and Mechanics

Iron Harvest is deeply rooted in Real-Time Tactics (RTT), heavily emphasizing map control and infantry preservation over massive base building.

Key gameplay mechanics include:

• The Cover System: Infantry squads are highly vulnerable. If you leave them standing in an open field, they will be shredded. You must manually order squads to dive behind sandbags, stone walls, and trench lines to gain massive defensive bonuses.
• Dynamic Classes (Scavenging): You don’t necessarily need to build a barracks to get anti-tank infantry. If your basic riflemen kill an enemy grenadier squad or find a weapon crate, they can physically pick up the dropped weapons and instantly change their class on the battlefield, turning from riflemen to medics, engineers, or heavy gunners on the fly.
• Destructible Environments: The cover system is dynamic. A stone wall might protect your infantry from bullets, but when a massive, 40-ton mech walks through the battlefield, it will literally smash right through the building, destroying the cover and crushing anyone behind it.
• Resource Nodes: There are no harvesters to build. The economy is strictly dictated by map control. Players must send infantry to capture and hold Iron Mines and Oil Pumps scattered across the map to fund their mech production.

The Factions

The base game features three wildly asymmetrical factions, heavily mirroring real-world European powers of the 1920s:

• The Polania Republic (Poland): A scrappy, agricultural nation caught in the middle of two superpowers. They rely heavily on mobility, hit-and-run cavalry tactics, and guerrilla warfare. Their mechs are often repurposed farming equipment, lightly armored but incredibly fast and capable of rapid redeployment.
• The Saxony Empire (Germany): A proud, heavily industrialized military juggernaut. They boast the most devastating firepower in the game. Their mechs are incredibly slow, heavily armored walking bunkers designed to slowly march across the map and obliterate defensive lines with massive artillery cannons.
• The Rusviet Union (Russia): A massive, sprawling empire on the brink of internal revolution. They specialize in overwhelming, close-quarters brutality. Their mechs are rugged and designed for pure frontline brawling, frequently armed with massive flamethrowers and heavy melee weapons to break enemy trenches.

(Note: In 2021, the Operation Eagle expansion introduced a fourth playable faction, Usonia—the alternate-history United States—who completely shook up the game’s meta by introducing a massive fleet of heavily armed, dieselpunk airships and paratroopers).

Development and Legacy

Following a highly successful Kickstarter campaign in 2018, Iron Harvest released in September 2020 to solid reviews. Fans of classic, slow-paced RTS games praised it as a brilliant spiritual successor to Company of Heroes, lauding its breathtaking art design and deep, cinematic single-player campaign.

It did face some criticism at launch for slightly clunky unit pathfinding (a notoriously difficult thing to program when massive mechs are dynamically destroying the game’s physical cover), but KING Art Games spent months heavily patching the game and balancing the multiplayer meta.

Today, Iron Harvest stands as a fantastic, atmospheric strategy experience. For players who love heavy, thumping industrial warfare and tactical, squad-based combat, it is one of the premier modern entries in the genre.

Key Features:

• 1920+ Dieselpunk — Command armies in the breathtaking, alternate-history universe of Jakub Różalski, where cavalrymen charge alongside towering, diesel-spewing walking tanks.
• Tactical Cover System — Master a combat system where positioning is everything; garrison buildings, dive into trenches, and flank enemy heavy machine guns.
• Destructible Battlefields — Watch the map physically change as colossal mechs smash through stone walls, farmhouses, and enemy cover.
• A Sweeping Campaign — Play through three massive, fully voice-acted single-player campaigns, following compelling heroes attempting to stop a global conspiracy.
• Dynamic Infantry — Adapt to the battlefield on the fly by having your squads scavenge weapons from fallen enemies to completely change their combat roles.

Release Platforms:

• Microsoft Windows (PC) — September 1, 2020
• PlayStation 5 & Xbox Series X|S — October 26, 2021 (Released as the “Complete Edition” including all DLC).