The first time I’ve heard about Grey Goo was, to be honest, when I was sent an email from PR company that is representing the game. At first I thought the game was going to be some silly casual game for mobile and PC. But as I started to do research for these preview pieces, I realized that Grey Goo is no laughing matter. Grey goo is an actually a hypothetical doomsday scenario created by American engineer Eric Drexler that involves molecular nanotechnology in which self replicating nanobot get out of control and consume all matter on Earth while increasing their numbers. I wouldn’t blame you if you thought that this sounds a whole like the beginnings of the Borg, which is actually pretty cool. Naturally the idea of making this into an RTS came to the minds of developers Petroglyph. Who are Petroglyph you may be asking?
If you remember the days before EA took over the Command & Conquer from Westwood Studios, then you know Petroglyph. Petroglyph was formed from the last group of ex Westwood employees that resigned from EA before EA shut the studio down and reopened it as EA Los Angeles. Since then they have worked on several projects such as Star Wars Empire at War, Universe at War Earth Assault, Panzer General and many more. The studio is now staff with a little over 50+ members that have worked on various games ranging from FPS to third person shoots and of course RTS.
Base on the videos that have been release of the game since its reveal last year, we know that Grey Goo will have three different playable races: humans, aliens and a swarm of the Grey Goo. Hmmm kind of sounds like another very well know RTS. Regardless of similarities, Petroglyph plans to chance how RTS games are played by using a QWERTY set up that empathizes “macro decisions over macro management”. I’ve been a big fan of the C&C and it will be interesting to see how this will play when I see the game on Friday.
