As it stands, Stargate: Timekeepers is half a stealth strategy game.
I quite enjoyed the Kurt Russell Stargate movie. It was a fun, light sci-fi film with an ancient Egyptian setting, teleporters, spaceships, and very 90s CGI. I watched a bit of the spin off series SG1 as well, but not to a great extent. With that said, I thought I’d be going into Stargate: Timekeepers with enough to get by narratively. I was very wrong. Still, there’s a solid enough stealth game here, even if it’s hidden under a real-time tactics veneer.
In Stargate: Timekeepers, you’ll command a number of operatives of Stargate Command who are trying to prevent someone called Moloc from taking over a planet. I think that’s the case anyway. I feel like there’s an assumption that you’ll have a lot of background knowledge on SG1, and this is fine as it’s clear that this is made for fans of the show. A primer of some sort would be nice though, or perhaps a glossary, just to fill you in on a little background about who the various factions are.
Anyway, over a series of missions you’ll try to bring down Moloc’s regime, but you’ll only get half way there as things stand. Stargate: Timekeepers is only half a game right now, and being fair it does tell you this in the product description on Steam. In its current form, you get the first half of what the developers are calling Season 1, with the second half being due sometime in 2024 at the time of writing. It feels almost like an Early Access way of doing business, but without putting that label on the game for fear of putting people off. I’m not a fan of business being done like this, as it feels like it’s going back to the old episodic game system that left so many unfinished narratives in the early 00s.
Setting aside my narrative concerns though, Stargate: Timekeepers at least feels mechanically complete. On a mission you’ll have a few operatives, each with their own special skills that you’ll need to utilise to complete objectives. Most of the time these objectives will simply be reaching a certain position, activating a console, or collecting something. Completing those objectives will need a lot of guile as, and I can’t stress this enough, this is absolutely a stealth game. Watching the trailers and looking at screenshots makes it look like a Commandos game with Stargate branding, but you will play this game in the way it wants or you’ll fail as if any operative dies, it’s game over.
This is because your team members are not even remotely hardy, dying very quickly if a firefight opens up. In fact, if you’re spotted and there’s even a hint of open combat, you may as well load your last save as you’ll probably be swamped and killed before you can come up with a plan to react. This is due to the fact that your enemies are much tougher than you. You can kill them if you have a gun that will do the job, but firing has a long cooldown and limited resources, plus some enemies require a couple of hits to put down. Then again, maybe you have a melee weapon which can knock enemies out instead, but you’ll find they stand back up a few moments later if you don’t tie them up to incapacitate them. It’s pretty brutal, and if you’re spotted, you probably won’t have a chance to get away unharmed.
Thankfully, your crew have a number of stealthy methods to keep out of trouble. Eva has stun grenades which can knock out multiple targets at close range, allowing her and any allies to tie up a few enemies quickly, and hopefully without being spotted. Max has a sniper rifle to put down weaker enemies whilst staying far enough away to not be seen, plus the added bonus of rounds that can blind targets to allow allies to sneak by. Sam can disguise himself as the enemy to move around more freely. These skills can work well together, especially when paired with the quite enjoyable pause and command feature where you can freeze the action and dish out orders to your operatives before executing them. There’s even a neat option to have the actions you’ve doled out synchronise and activate at the same time which feels pretty cool when you nail it. It’s nice having all these tools to play with, and this is the sort of thing that reminds me of Commandos.
But unlike that genre luminary with its almost open-ended missions, it quickly becomes apparent here that you are expected to complete objectives in a very specific way. The levels are quite linear, and any deviation from the route, or what feels like the developer’s intended way of completing a level, will lead to you being spotted. And reaching for that quickload button. It amuses me that there’s a timer showing you how long it’s been since you last saved so you know how much progress you’re about to lose.
For this reason, I found myself having a lot more fun playing on the much easier Story difficulty. Enemies are less smart and you don’t need to worry about limited resources. Once I started playing like this I had a lot more fun. Suddenly I was able to mess around with all the grenades I wanted and pick off countless enemies with a sniper rifle. Later stages were still a bit trickier, especially ones where disguises were mandatory, but other than that things were much more enjoyable as it felt like the leash had been taken off.
Visually, things are solid enough, although not outstanding. Animations look nice, and gameplay runs smoothly, but it’s not always clear at a glance which enemies are armoured and require more focus to put down. Zooming in makes it more obvious, but I’d like an indicator over their heads to help me prioritise targets. I quite liked some of the incidental conversations between enemies. Whilst nothing groundbreaking, it’s more than you get from a lot of games these days. There were some odd stutters in cutscenes too, which is strange when the game itself ran so smoothly. Not a significant issue, but very noticeable. The voice work is good, even if the script is a bit tonally all over the place, and I quite liked the use of sound effects from the movie and/or show.
In its current form, it’s not easy to recommend Stargate: Timekeepers. It’s only half a game and that half is incredibly rigid in its gameplay unless you’re willing to sacrifice the challenge it provides. Perhaps the second half will be absolutely outstanding when that releases, but that’s an unknown quantity for the time being. For now, you might want to dial into something else until the mysteries of this universe are revealed.
Stargate: Timekeepers is available now on PC.
