Orch Star

I went in expecting a gimmick - orcs in space sounds like a game jam pitch someone forgot to cancel. What I got instead was a surprisingly clean planet-capture RTS that has more in common with Galcon or Sins of a Solar Empire's skirmish layer than with anything that would appeal to hardcore StarCraft players, and that is not a knock. The core loop is tight: you start with a handful of orch ships on a controlled planet, push fleets outward to take neutral and enemy planets, which then produce more ships for the next wave. Controlled planets are your economy and your army simultaneously, so every attack is also a gamble on your defenses. Skirmish mode notably does not end when your own forces fall, provided allies are still fighting - a small design choice that transforms lopsided games into watchable tactical chaos rather than a loading screen. The campaign follows warchief Orca Wartusk through 15 escalating scenarios, and the faction lineup is wider than the marketing suggests - you are up against not just elves but also Pekeewans, Goblins, and rival orch clans, each with distinct ship types and, later in the campaign, unlockable tech and spells. The difficulty curve is legitimate: the third-party AI factions have a habit of intervening exactly when you think you have cornered an opponent, which forces actual prioritization instead of pure rush tactics. If you play on desktop with mouse and keyboard the interface is clean. If you own a Vive or Rift, the VR mode is the same full game - no stripped-down content - just a different spatial perspective that genuinely changes how you read the battlefield. The multiplayer is where I have to pump the brakes. Cross-platform support up to six players is a good spec on paper, and the deathmatch mode with customizable team compositions gives you flexibility. The problem is that Orch Star's player count is small enough that finding a live match requires coordinating with friends in advance or accepting an AI-padded lobby. The Workshop partially patches this by extending Skirmish longevity with community-created scenarios, and the Level Editor is a real tool - not a toy - since the developers used it to build every campaign and skirmish scenario in the shipped game. That pedigree shows. But no amount of Workshop content fully compensates for an empty ranked pool if you came here for competitive PvP. For what it is - a compact, VR-optional space RTS from a small Swedish studio - Orch Star holds up better than its obscurity suggests. The AI skirmish experience is solid, the campaign has actual escalation, and the dual desktop-VR support without a content split is a genuinely good call. Where it falls short is depth at the top end: there are no persistent progression systems, no ranked ladder worth mentioning, and the ship variety, while serviceable, does not reward the kind of build theorycrafting that keeps a competitive community alive. Treat it as a lean singleplayer-and-friends title and expectations land correctly. Fred, Scout Team