While the cosy genre for some might mean a spot of farming or a touch of interior design, it’s tower defence that remains my calm, happy place. I’m not sure what that says about me, but it’s fair to say that IDUN – Frontline Survival puts you in that zen zone of constant watchfulness, laying down destructive towers while the hideous alien hordes attempt to overrun your defences. Ahhh, so cosy.
You play Security Officer Ham, who’s literally having a nap on the job when you’re introduced to him. This is the only rest he’s getting though, with a grotesquely rude awakening when vermin start to attack your mining post. You have to rely on your trusty flamethrower turret and Ham’s shotgun to make it out alive. There’s a cool sci-fi story running through IDUN’s tower-centric action, presented with great-looking character art to back it up.
The narrative drive helps to get you dug in with IDUN’s different mechanics, from controlling multiple hero characters, alongside moving and shifting your towers to deal with threats in the moment. As with the best tower defence games, IDUN forces you to face huge swarms of incoming enemies and hold them off, and it’s a lot of fun doing so.
The thing is, this isn’t so much a tower defence game as it is an RTS defence game. It merrily skewers the two genres together, and if you’re a fan of either it’s a winning combination that takes very little time to get you hooked. You move your towers and heroes as you need them, and it maintains a frantic pace that isn’t often found in the defence genre.
The only downside to moving your towers around is that you potentially lose some of the strategy and decision-making that you do when placing things permanently. In return though, I really like the addition of hero characters that you can use to plug gaps and turn the tide in your favour, and the increased pace lends IDUN – Frontline Survival its own feel.
There’s resource collection to think of too, and it’s often like spinning a very angry plate, balancing the need to control resource nodes while protecting your drilling equipment and base. Collecting enough resources unlocks upgrades mid-mission, from extra towers to permanent upgrades. This gives you a constant flow of improvements and decisions to make, and you have to hope that you’re making the right one to deal with the incoming threats.
Things can become a little too hectic at times, and there were moments where I lost my hero characters amongst the writhing enemy hordes. That said, it’s so enjoyable, that you can look past the occasional foible. You can call down additional artillery fire to give you a boost when things are looking desperate, and you’ll probably find yourself using it every single chance you can.
IDUN – Frontline Survival is no joke, pushing you to the limit in terms of enemy numbers and resources. On Medium difficulty you’ll be up against it by the third level, but in turn it feels really well balanced, and victory is hard won and rewarding.
You can upgrade your crew using resources won through successfully completing missions, increasing their health, range, fire rate and more. In addition to that, there’s a vast number of different turrets and additional weaponry you can install from your space station, keeping things interesting as you progress, and hopefully helping you through to the other side.