Age of Darkness: Final Stand Review — Face the Darkness (With a Friend!)

Age of Darkness: Final Stand has easily become one of my favorite new games. Another great title from the developers of Kill Knight, this RTS effortlessly combines proven fan-favorite genre mechanics with smart twists on the formula, a phenomenal fantasy setting, and the ingenious inclusion of multiple gameplay elements. Age of Darkness: Final Stand stands out among other RTS games, wearing a big shiny crown on its head. Add to all of this an incredibly generous price of entry, and you just might find yourself as obsessed with this gem of a game as I am.

Age of Darkness: Final Stand has been on my radar for a while. I added the game to my Steam wishlist when it was first announced, where it sat until I forgot about it. When I was reminded of the game by the developer’s request for a review, it felt like an early holiday—unwrapping a brand-new key for a game I forgot I wanted, with plenty of time to play it before writing my review. At the time of writing, I’ve probably spent more time playing Age of Darkness: Final Stand in my free time than any other game I’ve reviewed—and I haven’t even touched the campaign mode yet.

It was clear to me early on that I would enjoy Age of Darkness: Final Stand. The game uses the same formula as They Are Billions, a game I was a fanatic for when I started my journalistic career. If you’ve never played it, Age of Darkness: Final Stand is an RTS game that challenges you to gather resources and build an army to reclaim and defend your land from hordes of nightmarish ghouls of varying shapes, sizes, and deadliness. These ghouls are spread across the map by the thousands, grow stronger at night, and every few nights, the breaking of a crystal releases increasingly large and dangerous groups of them that head straight for your base. If your town center is destroyed, you lose.

You can essentially describe this gameplay loop as Bloons Tower Defense meets Stronghold Crusader meets Left 4 Dead.

Age of Darkness: Final Stand combines this RTS/tower defense/onslaught-of-nightmares gameplay with a cool “hero” system that adds some MOBA champion flair and RPG elements to the game.

Essentially, the hero is a unique unit that gains XP from kills and unlocks better stats and powerful abilities over the course of a game. This encourages you to explore the map and slay nightmares rather than just turtling defensively. Age of Darkness: Final Stand has six heroes at launch, with two for each faction, and each one is not only strong in character but also comes with a unique playstyle. My personal favorites are Edwin with his flaming greatsword and the incredible sniper Cyrus, my go-to duo when my buddy and I tested the game’s multiplayer (more on that later).

I have to reiterate that the character flavor is phenomenal. There was only one hero I found disinteresting—the tankier option for the same faction as Edwin, who couldn’t compete with Edwin’s flaming-sword glory in my eyes. If you’ve read my past reviews, you know I’m very picky with character choices, so finding myself drawn to over 99% of the game’s cast is rare and speaks volumes about how interesting they are, both visually and mechanically.

The concept and execution of the hero feature make me excited for the future of Age of Darkness: Final Stand, where even more playable characters could be introduced as DLC or free updates.

As I mentioned earlier, the game features three factions with two characters each. While your hero is a major factor in how you play the game, the faction you choose matters even more. Each faction has its own playstyle and unique units to keep things interesting. This adds a lot of replayability as you try out each faction and explore fun combos in multiplayer by combining the unique strengths of two factions and heroes.

While this is purely cosmetic, I would like to see each faction have reskins for basic shared units and buildings. As of the 1.0 version, all factions share most units and building designs except for their keeps. It feels a little strange when the cultist faction builds wooden houses or when the rebellion faction has the same soldiers, archers, and pikemen as the order.

The graphics in Age of Darkness: Final Stand are impressive, offering a fantastic dark fantasy aesthetic. Units and buildings look great, and while the goal of the game is survival and tower defense, let’s be honest—we all want our towns, castles, and armies to look cool. The only buildings I feel could be improved are the walls, which have a chunky design that doesn’t always blend well.

I touched on this earlier, but Age of Darkness: Final Stand also shakes things up with multiplayer. You can brave the night against horrors with one friend with two unique keeps and your own units and buildings. While production isn’t shared, you can easily trade materials, and the game provides added bonuses to help you face the stronger waves.

Age of Darkness: Final Stand is absolutely better with a friend, but there are a few changes I’d like to see for this mode. The most important is that the connection doesn’t seem very strong. My friend and I faced heavy lag, causing delays before orders or inputs were registered. A less pressing issue is the game’s mutually assured destruction mechanic—if one keep is destroyed, both players lose immediately. While this adds its own challenge, I think it would be fun to have an option for a “last player standing” mode where you keep going until both keeps are destroyed, with the possibility to rebuild an ally’s fallen fortress.

When all is said and done, I have no major criticisms of Age of Darkness: Final Stand. All I want from the game is more—reskins for units and buildings, more multiplayer options, additional units, buildings, and heroes. This game has me hooked and leaves me excited for whatever the developers add next.

Try Hard Guides received a PC review code for this game. Find more detailed looks at popular and upcoming titles on our Game Reviews page! Deathless. Age of Darkness: Final Stand is available on Steam.

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