IDUN - Frontline Survival Review

Idun – Frontline Survival has been flying under most radars for the longest time, but it’s managed to make a noticeable impact on the RTS community after its January 20 arrival on Steam. Its central premise is a simple and effective one: What if you could instantly move the buildings around in a tower defense game?

On paper, this sounds like either a recipe for disaster or a hidden gem. After spending a few hours blasting through its main quest and many of the secondary, roguelite missions that make up the bulk of the journey, I’m leaning towards a recommendation if you’re a player looking for a fun twist on the base/tower defense formula. That said, there are big caveats.

While Idun is all about creating and moving around defensive buildings and heroes, it’s rather varied in its overarching design. Quite often, you’ll find yourself defending bases or escorting a nuke through hordes of alien bugs. Other times, you’ll pilot a lumbering mech suit with WASD controls in order to recover meteor fragments while taking care of the regular defense loop with teleporting turrets. Push a bit further into the scattered campaign and you’ll hit even more unpredictable scenarios. IDUN Interactive – created by ex-Crytek and DICE dev Gustav Hagerling – knows how to subvert expectations.

Perhaps that’s Idun’s biggest strength: Whether you stick to the ‘easy’ difficulty level or take the chaos a step further, it’s an RTS that keeps you on your toes. The loop works and feels good; units range from familiar but effective to genuinely bonkers; its vast progression layer is grindy but robust. Overall, it’s an enticing package for both tower defense sickos and curious newcomers. Plus, it puts its best foot forward with snappy (albeit sometimes wonky) controls and stable performance even during total carnage.

The story takes us to a faraway planet that’s being mined for mineral resources in the distant future. As usual, things aren’t easy, mainly because the local fauna wants human invaders dead. Fair enough, but we’re not going down without a fight, especially when some mysterious infection is rapidly spreading across the planet’s surface. It’s all basic stuff that you’re likely to skim through, and I wasn’t particularly charmed by any of its dialogues or short cutscenes; in fact, Idun would’ve benefitted from doubling down on the fun and silliness of the concept versus trying to create faux drama and stakes.

Its half-baked storytelling aspirations could’ve been brushed aside with ease under normal circumstances, but lo and behold, AI-generated voice acting has infected the game, and the developer’s response to criticism wasn’t the best. Considering Idun’s nature, I reckon that going with ‘text-only’ dialogues and cutscenes would’ve saved everyone some headaches. At best, the character voices are forgettable. At their very worst, deadpan deliveries turn supposedly dramatic scenes into skits.

Many potential buyers won’t be able to ignore that aspect of an otherwise well-made game that simply feels creatively misguided at times. Much of the ‘bloat’ in between major missions should’ve been trimmed out and pushed to the post-campaign endgame, as there’s enough fun in the moment-to-moment action and strategy to make RTS vets stick around. If you can brave its negatives and some rough edges, there’s much fun to be had here.