Iron Harvest is a real-time strategy video game created by King Art Games and published by Deep Silver. Players control large robots called mecha and groups of soldiers in a futuristic world inspired by old technology. The game was released for computers running Windows on September 1, 2020, and for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S on October 26, 2021.
Gameplay
The player can control mecha, infantry, and hero units. The game will have more than twenty missions and different single-player stories for each of the three main groups. The game includes both multiplayer and skirmish modes.
Setting
The game takes place in a different version of history created by Polish artist Jakub Różalski. This version of history was made famous by the board game Scythe. The 1920+ universe is based on the Polish–Soviet War that happened between 1919 and 1921. The game’s theme combines elements of old technology and futuristic machines, called "dieselpunk mecha." The story follows a conflict between three countries in Central and Eastern Europe—Polania, Rusviet, and Saxony. These countries represent real-world nations: Poland, the Soviet Union/Russian Empire, and Imperial Germany. The events take place in the 1920s, after World War I ended. In May 2021, an expansion called Operation Eagle was released, adding a fourth playable nation called Usonia, which represents the United States.
Plot
Young Anna Kos lives with her scientist father, Piotr, in Polania, a region now controlled by the Rusviet army after a peace agreement was signed with Saxony to end the Great War. During this war, Anna’s older brother, Janek, was killed. One day, Rusviet soldiers attack Anna’s village to capture Piotr, a scientist whose prosthetic arm can disable machines called mechs. Piotr is taken by Colonel Lev Zubov, who wants to force him to access Nikola Tesla’s Factory. Anna gathers fighters from the Polanian Resistance to rescue her father. Her uncle, Lech, the Resistance leader, joins her, but they arrive too late. Piotr is seriously injured when Zubov takes his arm. Before dying, Piotr tells Anna to warn his colleague, Heinrich Steinmetz, in Kolno.
Determined to avenge her father, Anna works with Lech to lead a relief train to Kolno. There, she learns the Resistance has sent food and weapons to the people of Polania. Lech shares his plan to start an armed rebellion in Kolno to unite Polania and drive out the Rusviet occupation. Anna disagrees with Lech’s plan and stops him when he tries to use her as a sacrifice. She helps Heinrich evacuate civilians using an airship, while Lech and the Resistance stay behind to protect Heinrich’s escape.
Colonel Zubov captures Anna and Lech, revealing he tricked the Resistance into attacking Kolno to break the truce. He is part of a group called Fenris, which wants to restart the war. Zubov kills Lech, but the Polanian Army, led by Commander Michał Sikorski, saves Anna and forces Zubov to flee. Anna confronts one of Zubov’s officers, only to discover it is Janek, her brother, now a cyborg.
Janek explains that four weeks earlier, he was part of the Polanian security team during peace talks when the meeting was attacked by Rusviet rebels. He and Rusviet’s chief of security, Olga Morozova, saved Tsar Nicholas from a burning palace, but the palace collapsed, and the Tsar was believed dead. Janek was nearly killed but was saved by Rusviet scientists using Tesla technology to turn him into a cyborg. Olga later swapped Janek’s identity with one of Zubov’s soldiers to give him medical care and position him as a spy. She discovered that Zubov and Tsar Nicholas’s advisor, Rasputin, are both part of Fenris. Olga warned Kaiser Friedrich of Saxony about Fenris, while Janek stayed with Zubov to find Heinrich. They attacked a Saxonian missile base and found information about Piotr and Heinrich’s locations in Polania.
In the present, Janek refuses to abandon his spy role even after learning about Piotr and Lech’s deaths. He helps Zubov capture Heinrich, who reveals they need a transponder to enter Tesla’s Factory but warns they cannot avoid the "Icarus Protocol." Heinrich dies by suicide before being questioned. Zubov later finds the transponder in Piotr’s prosthetic arm and uses it to disable Tesla’s Factory defenses. When Tesla offers to fix Janek’s injuries, Janek turns on Zubov, but his suit is disabled by a safety measure. Before Zubov can kill Tesla, he is stopped by a Saxonian officer, Gunter von Duisburg.
Gunter recalls a past mission where he criticized Prince Wilhelm for using chlorine gas against Rusviet soldiers, which led to Gunter’s disgrace. Now, Kaiser Friedrich asks Gunter to help after Olga warns him about Fenris. Gunter agrees reluctantly but is later framed for the Kaiser’s murder by Wilhelm. He escapes, retrieves his mech, Brunhilde, and rescues loyal soldiers with engineer Frieda Ruete. With Saxony under Wilhelm’s control, Olga suggests Gunter and his allies seek refuge in Tesla’s Factory.
At the Factory, they find it under attack by Zubov’s forces. Gunter joins forces with Anna, Sikorski, and the Polanian Army to push back Zubov. Tesla warns that the Icarus Protocol has been activated—a massive mech designed to destroy technology. Anna, Olga, and Gunter work together to destroy the machine. Tesla is discouraged, but the alliance shows that people from different nations can unite for a common goal. Inspired, Tesla begins rebuilding his Factory while others vow to fight Fenris.
After Zubov’s attack, a revolution breaks out in Rusviet. Rebels try to remove Tsar Nicholas, while loyalists fight to stop the revolt. The Tsar flees to a safehouse but is later rescued by Olga, who convinces him that Rasputin and Fenris are behind the uprising. The Tsar returns to St. Petersburg to restore order but realizes his loyalists are as harsh as the rebels. He plans to address the nation from a broadcast tower, but Rasputin ambushes and kills him, using the broadcast to declare the Revolution victorious. Zubov surrenders to Rasputin, giving Fenris full control of Rusviet. Olga escapes with loyal soldiers.
Meanwhile, Usonian forces, led by Admiral George Mason, take control of Alaska after Rusviet troops seize it. Mason sends his son, Captain William Mason, to Arabia, where Saxonians control the region’s oil. William wants to help Arabia’s people overthrow the Saxonians, not for his father’s business goals. When his airship is shot down, he is rescued by Princess Sita, leader of Arabia’s Free Tribes.
Development
The game was announced in 2016. In 2018, the game went through a successful fundraising campaign that collected more than 1.5 million dollars. The original plan was to release the game in the fourth quarter of 2019. However, the release was delayed to 2020. In March 2020, a beta version of the game became available. In June 2020, a demo version was released on Steam. The game was launched for Windows on September 1, 2020. It was later released for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S on October 26, 2021.
In December 2020, a DLC expansion called Rusviet Revolution was released. On May 27, 2021, Operation Eagle was released.
Reception
In March 2020, Colin Campbell of Polygon noted that the game "used units, cover, and terrain wisely," comparing it favorably to the Company of Heroes series. At the same time, Seth Macy of IGN called the game "awesome," highlighting the attention to detail in how brick buildings collapse. Ian Boudreau of PCGamesN praised the game for staying true to its design principles and noted the realistic destruction of wooden buildings in the visuals.
After the game’s release, Toby Arguello of Screen Rant stated that "Iron Harvest does not change the RTS genre, but its setting and gameplay make it a strong addition to a genre often overlooked." Robin Meyer-Lorey of Game Rant described it as "a high-quality RTS with enough content to enjoy, though the gameplay follows standard RTS patterns." Rick Lane of PC Gamer called it "a worthy spiritual successor to one of the best RTS games ever made." However, Daniil Kortez of Russian DTF criticized the game for what he saw as negative stereotypes of Russians.
All reviews also mentioned the game’s strong visuals, including Różalski’s 1920s-style dieselpunk and European scenery ideas.
In January 2020, the game received the "Best German Game" award at the Deutscher Entwicklerpreis. Developer King Art also won "Best Game Design" and "Best Sound Design," and was nominated for "Best Graphics" and "Best Story."