Brutal survival RTS Age of Darkness kept me up until 4 am this morning as I tried to perfect the formula to halt the end of the world

I am very tired. I should be long past videogame all-nighters, but last night saw me incapable of dragging myself away from my PC. I needed to get through one more wave of demonic horrors. Build one more tower. Kill one more elite. More than any of that, though, I desperately needed to figure out the perfect formula to surviving in Age of Darkness: Final Stand.

Aussie outfit PlaySide's survival RTS is leaving early access after four years today, and it's going to be disastrous for my health. Since it's been a while since it first appeared on Steam, let me get you up to speed: Age of Darkness is an RTS in the vein of zombie romp They Are Billions, where your task is to survive tidal waves of monsters determined to annihilate your vulnerable settlement.

It is incredibly stressful, but it has a brisk rhythm that simply won't let you quit. Each brief day will see you shoring up your defenses and generating the resources required to survive, and the moment the sun goes down, the monsters come out to play. When the sun's out, they are largely passive, at least until you send your units to scour the environment for resource caches, but the darkness emboldens them, making them stronger and more aggressive.

Most nights, though, they are easy to handle. Small groups of them will prod your defenses, trying to slip through them to attack your keep (when it goes down you're done) and while you might lose a building here or there, at least until you surround yourself with walls, regular nights probably won't result in your demise. It's the Death Nights that you really have to worry about.

After surviving for a few nights, a vast horde of Nightmares will be summoned, and they'll rush towards your settlement, slamming up against the walls in a desperate attempt to eradicate your keep. Your settlement will also be surrounded by a thick, lethal fog, harming and terrifying any units that run into it. It even gets into your base itself, lingering in the places where there's no light.

Sweet dreams

Survive a Death Night and you'll be given a reprieve, but there's always another one coming. Each victory gives you more breathing room, but it's not a relief; the next Death Night is going to be much worse, with the horde growing dramatically each time. From hundreds to thousands. Age of Darkness's SwarmTech magic allows for more than 70,000 AI-controlled units on the screen at any time. It's making me sweat just thinking about it.

It's a simple but brutal structure that I've still not quite figured out yet. There's a surprising amount to juggle, exacerbated by the shortness of the days. You've got just enough time to make meaningful improvements to your base and expand your army, but not enough time to make many mistakes. After years in early access I'm sure there's a 'perfect' build order, but I won't be able to enjoy the victory unless I figure it out for myself.

How many farms should I have by Death Night 1? How many archers should I have by Death Night 2? When's the best time to start upgrading fortifications? Should I risk sending my army out tonight to kill an elite Nightmare, netting myself potent rewards, like the ability to resurrect my hero without waiting for the cooldown? Or should I wait until I have a bigger army?

Every building and unit has resource prerequisites, from people to stone, and in some cases how many resources you generate per tick is determined by the placement of the buildings, as well as how many people are diligently working away inside them. There are a lot of numbers to consider, and the trick is learning the precise formula that will ensure victory. I just don't know what it is yet.

Precision is the magic word here, but then you've got Malices and Blessings, which throw a spanner in the works. Malices are random negative effects that appear at the start of each Death Night, and include things like your own units rising from the dead to attack you, or Nightmares spawning from destroyed buildings. Blessings, meanwhile, are random rewards you earn by surviving Death Nights, which can buff your heroes and units or give your buildings positive quirks.

If you're finding the survival mode too easy, even on the higher difficulties, you can also pick some Hardships—difficulty modifiers that introduce unpleasant twists, like never getting Blessings or losing the ability to sell buildings. I'm definitely not at the point where I'll be needing these to give me a challenge. The regular difficulty is still kicking my arse.

A wall of flesh

I've played quite a bit of They Are Billions and Diplomacy is Not an Option, and I've started dabbling in Cataclismo, but while Age of Darkness has a similar conceit, there have been some surprises. Namely, that towers and fortifications don't feel that effective—at least not compared to your army. Cataclismo and Diplomacy is Not an Option are particularly focused on big construction projects, where you'll create huge, elaborate fortifications to halt the tide of doom. But thus far, my defenses in Age of Darkness have only served to give me enough time to get my army in place, and maybe recruit a few more warriors, before they're torn down by the relentless horde.

Even my basic warriors, though, are able to carve a bloody swathe through the sea of Nightmares. Heroes, meanwhile, are like one-person armies, and their unique abilities can take out big groups in one hit, or buff their allies, making their use essential. Add upgrades into the mix and it becomes clear that it's better to invest in flesh than complicated fortifications. And to be clear, this ain't a bad thing. Other games already tap into the fantasy of building stalwart castles. Age of Darkness offers something different.

Between all the modifiers, the three factions and the different difficulties, though, I imagine players will find all sorts of strategies that work for them. And I'm certainly not saying ignore your towers and walls. That way lies death. And a big army doesn't guarantee success.

I would have probably still been up at 5 am this morning if I hadn't grown too confident about the effectiveness of my warriors. See, the Nightmares ended up hitting a spot in my defences which I'd kinda been ignoring. It was only a small gap, where I'd placed one gate and two towers, with only one archer in each. I thought the horde was heading towards a different, better-defended wall. By the time my troops arrived, the gate was down and the towers were seconds away from joining them. Only a handful of Nightmares had been taken out, leaving around 1900 left.

I was a second too slow, unable to put my army in the gap to stop the Nightmares from swarming. With all this space to spread, they surrounded my forces, and while I managed to take out hundreds of them, it wasn't enough. Being attacked from all sides, each unit was going down in a second, and before I knew it I was left with nothing. My keep didn't stand a chance.

Despite feeling a bit sore about my loss, I was so close to talking myself into another run. I had a new plan. I definitely wouldn't make that mistake again (I did end up playing again just before I published this and while it went better, I still got demolished on the same day. Back to the drawing board!). Just one more go. But the risk of falling asleep during the morning meeting made me reconsider. I went to bed, reluctantly.

Bedtime story

The survival mode is where I've spent most of my time, but Age of Darkness also includes a campaign. Technically you should start there, as it slowly introduces important mechanics and gives you a solid basis for developing your survival strategies before you're flung into the deep end. Despite this, I'd actually recommend just diving head first into survival.

See, the campaign is just incredibly ponderous, and you won't even encounter your first horde until you've put quite a bit of time into it. Initially, there's just a lot of running around, completing dull quests and killing bandits with a small group of heroes and soldiers. It's an awful introduction, and I only started to enjoy myself once I quit and hopped into a survival game—which, as of launch, you'll be able to enjoy with a pal thanks to the introduction of online co-op.

While I like a good yarn, I don't really care about the story of this bleak world. I just wanna fight absurdly large swarms of monsters and come up with a winning strategy. Hell, I might start doing some maths. Consider this the biggest compliment I can give Age of Darkness: it's getting me excited about homework. But first, a lunchtime nap! And then it's back to the slaughter, probably until dawn. I'm having too much fun to be responsible.