Stormrise offers fans of the classic RTS genre an immersive and dramatic twist whilst challenging the conscience of the gamer. Experience the heat of the battlefield by leading your troops from the front line, instead of the traditional way of controlling the units from a detached view point. Stormrise also allows units to be commanded in the air, across rooftops, on the earth’s surface and even underground, this unique idea of “verticality” introduces multiple layers of gameplay that must be mastered for strategic advantage. The experience is heightened by a simple yet effective control system tailored specifically for consoles, which allows easy unit selection, rapid navigation and precise deployment.

Set on a bleak and barren earth, devastated by a catastrophic event centuries ago, Stormrise sees the Echelon and the Sai battling to survive in a hostile and uninhabitable wasteland. Remnants of a superior technological people the Echelon survived the event through self-educed hibernation, whilst the Sai, a more tribal faction, still exist having learnt to adapt to their surroundings and the new environment. Having evolved in vastly different ways, the differences between the two factions have spurred much animosity and hatred between the two races, and the future of the planet is now hanging by a thread…

In an urgent realization that drastic measures were necessary to safeguard the Earth’s future from human existence, the world’s best scientists were commissioned to develop a permanent solution to address mankind’s long running destruction of the environment.

Taking over 22 years to design and produce, the result was a force-field developed to supplement the deteriorating atmosphere, putting an end to global warming once-and-for-all, and safe-guarding mankind’s legacy for the foreseeable future.

The force-field was hailed as a success the world over – A symbol of hope and a testament to man’s technological prowess. There was nothing man could not triumph over.

But some things are simply uncontrollable, and in the end nature always prevails. Even with the best intentions at heart, humans had unknowingly engineered their own demise. There are no clear records of how it all went wrong. Was it our ambition or our arrogance?

Known only as “‘The Event”, the effects of the destructive storms were the same everywhere - nothing was spared, buildings, road surfaces and fields were stripped away and entire cities were flattened in mere days. Humans had never faced destruction on this level and on such a global scale.

With absolutely no escape from an all-consuming monster storm creeping out from the equatorial regions, authorities began to build huge underground structures filled with cryogenic hibernation chambers, planning to sleep out the storm. What began as a relatively structured process, soon deteriorated into chaos as the populace began to realize that there wouldn’t be enough room to house all remaining survivors. Panic ensued, difficult decisions were made, and only a privileged few were ultimately assured safety.

The doors to the massive underground complexes were sealed shut. Its thousands of occupants forced into a dreamless sleep that would last for centuries. Many of those outside starved. Some descended into madness. Others tore each other apart with the rage of desperation and anger…

Only a few surface dwellers managed to endure. Slowly evolving beyond their original forms and developing extra sensory abilities as centuries passed. With only limited means available, they attempted to rebuild a world left battered and bare by “The Event”.

These surface dwellers evolved into an almost entirely new race, known as The Sai, fending for themselves and utilizing remnants of the technology left by their sleeping ancestral cousins. They built makeshift communities over and around the remains of civilization and only spoke about the ‘old’ population with contempt in whispers around campfires. Growing ever stronger in a harsh destructive environment once thought to be conquered by technology, the Sai can not imagine that another storm is on the rise.

Below the surface, in cryogenic chambers designed to house their inhabitants for a finite length of time, one dark morning they sprang to life and the long-forgotten inhabitants awoke to reclaim their planet. The Echelon emerge... and Stormrise has begun.

Stormrise marks The Creative Assembly’s first foray into developing a purpose built RTS title for console and is slated to ship in 2009.