As soon as I fired up the Tempest Rising demo for the first time, I had a good feeling. Watching the opening cinematic, with its cheesy dialogue from bulky armored soldiers and a reedy scientist, I couldn’t help but smile. The music, UI design, and units are tailor-made to transport me back to high school, when I’d stay up late playing Command & Conquer with my friends, fueled by Mountain Dew, taco-flavored Pringles, and sleep deprivation. Recapturing that feeling through a new game in the modern era is a blast, and I’m excited to see what else the developers at Slipgate Ironworks have in store at launch and beyond. Whether I was jumping into Skirmish to play against bots with clever AI, or diving into Ranked Multiplayer, playing Tempest Rising feels as comfortable as slipping on my well-worn baseball glove.

My initial reaction is no accident. The developers at Slipgate Ironworks told me they set out to create a nostalgic real-time strategy (RTS) game that evokes the classics of the 90s and 2000s, while incorporating the quality-of-life improvements expected of modern games. Set in 1997, Tempest Rising unfolds in an alternate history where the Cuban Missile Crisis escalates into World War 3. In the aftermath of widespread nuclear bombardment, strange flowering vines begin to grow. These plants contain vast amounts of electrical energy, ushering in a new era of power for those brave enough to withstand the fallout and harvest them.

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Since the build I played was focused exclusively on multiplayer, I’ll have to wait to see what the story mode will bring. However, it will feature two replayable 11-mission campaigns, one for each of the main factions available in the preview. The Tempest Dynasty (TD) is an alliance of Eastern European and Asian countries, devastated by WW3. On the other hand, the Global Defense Forces (GDF) is an alliance between the United States, Canada, and Western Europe. There is a third faction, but we’ll have to wait to learn more until the campaign is available, as they aren’t playable in the preview build, the Steam RTS Fest demo, or at launch.

The Tempest Dynasty immediately appealed to me, not just because they can create an incredibly silly ‘death ball’ vehicle called the Tempest Sphere, which rolls over enemy infantry, squishing them into a fine paste. The Dynasty also has access to something called ‘plans,’ which are used to activate faction-wide bonuses of three specific kinds. Your Construction Yard, the main building everyone starts with, can activate one plan at a time. All you need is a little extra power generation and, apart from the 30-second cooldown for switching plans, you’re good to go.

The Logistics Plan let me build new structures faster and harvest resources more quickly. Mobile resource harvesters move more quickly, too. The Martial Plan boosted the attack speed of my units and gave them resistance to rockets and other explosives, as well as giving Machinist units the ability to drain their own health to gain 50% additional attack speed. Finally, the Security Plan cut the cost of making units and buildings, improved the Repair function certain units have, and expanded Radar vision. I found a fun rhythm by alternating between economy-boosting phases with the Logistics Plan, then sped-up building phases under the Security Plan, and finally going on the offensive with the enhanced combat potential of the Martial Plan.

This sort of flexibility extends to other aspects of the Dynasty as well. Instead of having to establish a base with a Refinery to harvest nearby fields of tempest (like the GDF does), the Tempest Dynasty builds Tempest Rigs, vehicles which drive to a resource-rich area and harvest until the field is depleted, then are free to pack up and go somewhere else. Because of this, my favorite ‘fast expand’ RTS strategy is easier than ever, particularly because it doesn’t matter how far away from my base these self-contained units go. In fact, sending a few Tempest Rigs to faraway places was a great way to let them harvest in peace, generating reliable cash for me without being discovered by my opponents.

The Dynasty also has a fun unit called the Salvage Van, which repairs nearby vehicles. However, it can also be converted into Salvage Mode, which destroys nearby vehicles no matter who they belong to, giving resources back to the salvaging player. I love sneaking up on opponents who aren’t paying attention, parking a salvage truck next to their vehicles, and destroying them to both deplete their army and claim those resources for myself.

Finally, power plants created by the Dynasty can switch from power generation to ‘Distribution Mode,’ which speeds up the construction and attack speed of nearby buildings (yeah, some upgraded Tempest Dynasty buildings have cannons. It’s awesome), at the cost of taking damage while the mode is active. Thankfully, the mode will stop affecting buildings at critical health, so I didn’t need to worry about destroying my own base for the speed boost.

While I prefer the Tempest Dynasty, the GDF certainly has its allure, too. They focus more on buffing allies, debuffing enemies, and exercising control over the battlefield. My favorite synergy between GDF units revolves around the Marking mechanic. Certain vehicles and infantry can ‘mark’ the enemies they target. Marked enemies drop Intel when defeated (a currency used for creating advanced units and structures), but if you invest in certain Doctrine upgrades (Tempest Rising’s version of ‘tech trees’), Marked enemies will get various debuffs including dealing less damage, taking more damage, and even increasing the range of certain units who attack them.

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Each faction has three tech trees to explore, which is where you’ll decide which part of your faction you’ll lean into. Like the GDF ‘Marking & Intel’ tree, the Dynasty has a tree which boosts the effectiveness of their ‘Plans,’ and that’s just the start. In addition to fun tech trees, there are cooldown abilities enabled by constructing specific advanced buildings. They cost money to activate, and each has its own cooldown, but these abilities are powerful ways to swing the tide of battle while adding flavor to the type of strategy each faction excels at. While both factions have abilities which deal damage in an area, or spawn extra troops, the GDF can also create spy drones, spawn beacons to allow building in remote locations, and even stop enemy vehicles from being able to attack for 12 seconds.

Because the Dynasty has fewer buildings, with each basic building capable of being upgraded into the advanced version, losing a structure to an enemy Engineer can be rough. To counter that, the Dynasty has a special ability called Lockdown, which prevents enemy takeovers, but simultaneously stops the building from taking action. The Field Infirmary was the ability I got the most use out of, which let me drop a stationary troop-healing area anywhere on the map. This ability is a great complement to the Dynasty, which already has both special infantry units and vehicles to repair mechanized allies.

There is more to explore, and I can’t wait to do it, particularly because the launch version will let me jump into Custom Lobbies with friends, letting us team up against the very clever AI bots (which used impressive hit-and-run and harrying tactics on me during Skirmishes). Until then, I’ll have to settle for fighting alone, squishing my bot enemies with swarms of death balls.