Star Wolves is a real-time, futuristic video game developed by Russian video game developer X-bow Software combining role-playing

Role-playing video game

Role-playing video games are a video game genre with origins in pen-and-paper role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons, using much of the same terminology, settings and game mechanics. The player in RPGs controls one character, or several adventuring party members, fulfilling one or many quests...

 and real-time tactics

Real-time tactics

Real-time tactics or RTT is a subgenre of tactical wargames played in real-time simulating the considerations and circumstances of operational warfare and military tactics...

 gameplay. It was first published in 2004 in Russia by 1C Company

1C Company

1C Company is one of the largest independent Russian software developers and publishers. Its headquarters are in Moscow, Russia. It is best known outside of the former Soviet Union as a video game developer whose presence has come to dominate events like the KRI, and whose products have begun to...

, and later in 2005 and 2006 in other parts of Europe and North America, respectively. A sequel, Star Wolves 2, was published in Russia in 2006 and in North America in 2007. Star Wolves 3 Civil War is the latest game of the series.

Gameplay

The game features a mix of role-playing and tactical elements, and is centered around controlling a mothership and small armada of ships in real-time using the mouse in a manner very similar to Homeworld

Homeworld

Homeworld is a real-time strategy computer game released on September 28, 1999, developed by Relic Entertainment and published by Sierra Entertainment. It was the first fully three-dimensional RTS. In 2003, Relic released the source code for Homeworld...

. Ships are piloted by characters whose skills advance as the game progresses. The player is able to select from a number of skill specializations for each character, making each character unique. Players can likewise customize each ship's armament and purchase new equipment on the open and black markets. At various times in the game, new characters will join the player's party so that the team becomes larger and more diverse.

Plot

The game is set in the future after mankind has journeyed into outer space and formed an interstellar Empire. During the course of the game the Empire becomes threatened by an alien species as well as the huge mega-corporations that have grown to control more and more of people's lives. The player is tasked with forming a rag-tag band of mercenaries to take on missions for the various factions, as well playing his or her own hand in humanity's destiny.

Development

The game was originally envisioned as a turn-based successor to Homeworld, but continued development saw an increased focus on characters and the addition of the "Smart Pause" feature found in such games as Baldur's Gate.

Reception

Star Wolves' Metacritic

Metacritic

Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...

score and MobyRank (two composite scores of video game reviews) are 61 and 73 as of January, 2009.