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A cool stealth-tactics Stargate game was definitely not on my 2024 bingo card

2K View2024-01-25

Stargate: Timekeepers

Real Time TacticsStrategyStealth

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SHOULD I PLAY STARGATE: TIMEKEEPERS?

Probably! For one thing, the first mission is free, so there’s no harm in trying it out. That said, Stargate: Timekeepers is a real-time stealth tactics game that’s very much in the tradition of Mimimi Games’ Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun, Desperados III, and Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew. If you dug any of those games, you’ll probably like Stargate: Timekeepers—although Slitherine’s sci-fi tie-in lacks the polish and user friendliness that Mimimi perfected over its run.

TIME PLAYED

I’ve completed the first of the seven missions included in the initial launch of Stargate: Timekeepers and gotten a decent start on the second. The initial mission was decently lengthy, even if it mainly served as a tutorial that introduced the controls and character abilities. It took me about forty-five minutes to complete, and I had to reload saves six or seven times when my characters got caught by guards and killed. The second mission involved scouting through a wooded area on an alien planet to find a clear path for a supply convoy, and it looks like it’ll be challenging at each step of the way.

WHAT’S AWESOME ABOUT STARGATE: TIMEKEEPERS?

• Great throwback setting. I was never huge into Stargate SG-1 growing up, but it definitely formed part of the whole sci-fi atmosphere in the late 1990s. It was a pleasantly grubby alternative to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and had a bunch of super-cool Air Force special forces soldiers exploring the galaxy by traveling through the Stargate device. I enjoyed returning to that setting in Stargate: Timekeepers, especially since it means that each “episode,” or mission, could take place on a unique planet with its own ecology and special mechanics.

• Coordinated takedowns. Stargate: Timekeepers is a real-time game, but it has a tactical pause that allowed me to set up synchronized kills in tricky situations. Solo guards weren’t usually a problem, but when I had to deal with groups, I could press T and map out sequences of movements and actions for my characters, which they would then perform in time with each other. So for example, I could make Col. Eva McCain toss an empty bullet casing somewhere to make guards look away while Max Bolton quietly slipped between pieces of cover behind them, then have both soldiers move in for simultaneous nonlethal takedowns. When plans like that worked, it was super satisfying.

• The missions are big. Each mission in Stargate: Timekeepers is meant to be like a TV episode, and the run times feel about right: The opening level took me about forty-five minutes, and it looks like the second is going to take at least an hour for me to finish. Both of these missions were subdivided into individual objectives, each of which opened up the next set of objectives and led further into the mission—they unfold the way the show did, in other words. Seven missions may not sound like a lot, but considering how big each one is, I was impressed. And for a single purchase, players will also get access to another seven missions when Season 1 Part 2 releases later this year.

WHAT NEEDS IMPROVEMENT IN STARGATE: TIMEKEEPERS?

• Clunky controls. After playing Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew, I found it frustrating to deal with Stargate: Timekeeper’s relatively unsophisticated and sometimes frustrating controls. Characters are tiny on the screen, and it could be hard to position them correctly or use skills on the correct enemy. For characters, the hotkeys were F1 and F2, but their skills were arranged on the number keys directly beneath these, and so I often found myself hitting the wrong button at disastrous moments.

• Line of sight is weird. Stargate: Timekeepers let me see enemies’ vision cones, and I felt that the rules around these were often pretty silly. Sometimes guards adhered to them so strictly that I could knock out a person standing right next to them without them noticing, but other times they would spot me from what felt like across the map. I could only see a single enemy vision code at a time, so I sometimes wound up being surprised when I got spotted by an enemy I hadn’t seen on screen yet, which felt bad.

• You have to wait to play the rest. Slitherine is letting us play the first half right now, but fans will no doubt be frustrated by the fact that they’ll have to wait until later this year to play the second part of Season 1—and it’s not clear if there will be future seasons as well.