Kingdom Rush 6: Genesis Review: The Best Deal of a Crowded Week

Control Resonant, Silent Hill: Townfall and EA Sports FC 27 all launched in the same week, and while they fought over the front pages, Ironhide Game Studio released Kingdom Rush 6: Genesis on September 24 with almost no noise. It's on Steam (Windows and macOS), the App Store and Google Play. On Steam it costs $19.99, with 10% off at launch. It's also the release from that week I keep reopening.

What it is

It's a Kingdom Rush game, so you already know the basics: build towers at fixed spots along the path, send your hero where things are going wrong, and save your spells for the moment the fortieth goblin shows up. This time the Sword of Elynie opens a portal back in time to Linirea as it looked in the very first game, and you have to stop Vez'nan's corruption before it starts. It's fan service with a real hook. The villain everyone already knows gets his origin story told as a campaign.

The roster is generous: 15 towers, 12 heroes, 9 spells, more than 40 enemy types from five factions and six big bosses. The number that matters most, though, is this one: 18 stages, each with five different victory paths. That's what fixes the series' oldest problem. Earlier games gave you one clear "right" build for most maps, and replaying a map meant doing the same thing again with more stars. Here, going back to a stage means approaching it with a different goal, and that feels like a new puzzle rather than a chore.

What works

Ironhide clearly listened. The blue interface from the pre-release footage, which a lot of players disliked, is gone. The old Heroic and Iron challenge modes, which had been neglected for years, have been rebuilt from scratch instead of being carried over out of habit. The core is as satisfying as ever: the moment your towers, hero and a well-aimed spell all fire together and clear a wave that looked impossible still hasn't worn thin after six games.

What doesn't

The PC launch is rougher than it should be for a series this polished. Ironhide has published its own list of known issues, and it's not short. It covers frame rate drops (the fix is capping at 30 FPS or turning off V-Sync), resolution settings that can get stuck, key rebinding that only works inside a stage, and a bug where the hero's movement line freezes near path corners. None of this ruins the game, but you'll run into at least one of them. Early Steam reviews are Mostly Positive, which fits: people like the game and dislike the rough edges.

The formula is also still the formula. If five earlier Kingdom Rush games never won you over, a time-travel story won't change that.

Who it's for

It's for fans of tower defense, fans of the series, and anyone who wants something smart to play in short bursts on a phone or laptop. There's no console version, so PC, Mac or mobile is the only way to play it here. At this price, and with how much there is to do, it's one of the best value-for-money releases this autumn.

Verdict

Genesis isn't a reinvention, but it's the most thoughtful Kingdom Rush since the original trilogy, and it costs a fraction of what the big releases that week do. Fix the PC bugs and it's close to a 9.

Score: 8/10

Image: Santeri Viinamäki / CC BY-SA 4.0, source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Playing_with_smartphone.jpg