Praetorians HD Remaster – Review

The late ’90s and beginning of the 20th century had a lot of releases of various strategy games, such as Command & Conquer, Age of Empires, and of course Praetorians. And now, since Age of Empires HD remaster in 2013, developers have worked their way through popular titles in that timeframe to re-release these titles, Praetorians are up next.

Name: Praetorians HD Remaster
Developer: Torus Games, Pyro Studio
Publisher: Kalypso Media
Platforms: PC (Console release Spring 2020)
Reviewed on: PC
Release Date: 24.01.2020
Acquired: A copy of this game was provided by a publisher for review purpose

Praetorians aren’t the usual real-time strategy game where you collect resources, building cities and then create a huge army as fast as possible to overrun the enemy, no. Like Ancestor’s Legacy (might even say that they got their inspiration from Praetorians?) every strategy and gameplay is strictly focused on the military.

Like in the original, the game features 20 campaign missions set in Egypt, Gaul, and Italy. Each unit the player can control from the three various factions available (more detail on that below) have their own unique set of abilities and formations.

Romans
More defensive. Players’ choice and favorite unit Legionaries, which is supposed to be the best standard fighting unit in the game.

The Romans don’t have the best cavalry, but what they lack in mounted units they make up for in infantry.

Gauls

Where the Romans are more defensive, the Gauls are more offensive.
Notable units are Berserkers and Warriors as strong offensive units, as well as Noblemen cavalry. However, while powerful, Gaul’s units are costly to recruit.

Egyptians

Egyptians yield greater numbers and are cheaper to recruit, but are generally more fragile. Their cavalry/chariots are excellent, however, their soldiers are a bit underpowered. Combined with the huge amount of cheap and quick-to-build infantry units, they can overcome opponents early in the game by sheer numbers alone.

The Good

Sadly there isn’t a lot of good stuff in this remaster, especially if we compare it with other remaster such as Age of Empire II HD.

The chaotic gameplay of Praetorians performs great on a new generation of PC, and the servers and performance of the multiplayer are great and stable. Comparing the graphics from the original to the HD Remaster we clearly see a difference that the HD Remaster is more polished in terms of textures and lighting. And it’s a great touch providing the original language and music to the game.

The Bad

Some remaster comes with new content, new animations, new units, a whole new layout, and much more new content, while others simply do not. Praetorians HD are one of those who do not provide new innovating stuff, and that’s okay to a certain degree. But then I expect a great overall to the graphics and gameplay, and it is here Pyro Studio disappoints me. Like I mentioned above, the textures and lighting are great, but there are no differences in user-interface, no improvements on the AI, no new animations, and no new look on the characters/units. And without the mod support, content such as siege maps are non-existing.

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