Silica
Silica blends FPS and RTS in epic, photorealistic battles. Choose to fight on the ground or command from above as humans or aliens. Dive into thrilling multiplayer combat or master strategic command. Are you ready to survive and conquer?
Silica is a rts, multiplayer and fps game
developed by Martin 'Dram' Melichárek
and published by Bohemia Interactive.
Released on May 03rd 2023 is available in English only on Windows.
It has received 4,230 reviews of which 3,251 were positive and 979 were negative resulting in a rating of 7.5 out of 10. 😊
The game is currently priced at 15.99€ on Steam and has a 20% discount.
The Steam community has classified Silica into these genres:
Media & Screenshots
Get an in-depth look at Silica through various videos and screenshots.
Requirements
These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.
Windows
- Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
- OS: Windows 10 / 11 64-bit
- Processor: Intel Core i5-7400 3GHz or AMD equivalent
- Memory: 8 GB RAM
- Graphics: GeForce GTX 970 or AMD Radeon RX 570
- DirectX: Version 11
- Storage: 24 GB available space
- Additional Notes: Hardware requirements are subject to change during Early Access.
Reviews
Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.
Warning: This game is missing EVERY SINGLE aspect of QoL you can imagine. Its also a very slow game. Fun, but not particularly action packed. Its quite the opposite of action packed. Most of the time is spent trying to get somewhere to do something. Spawns are bad. On FPS mode you cannot build vehicles so you're at the mercy of the commander IF he has any to build vehicles for you. On RTS mode its near impossible to have a good experience: hard to control units, terrible menu navigation, zero intuitive design. This is why passion is not enough to build a good game, because QoL is represented in professionalism, in this sense its the exact opposite of early access games like Mechabellum. What could help? 1. deactivate the dumb heat wavy filter or whatever its supposed to be, it only detracts from the experience. 2. Reword the entire menu, navigation and map system for RTS mode. It needs to be unrecognizeable. Want a reference? Go look at Command & Conquer menus. Even Kane's wrath is heaven compared to this. 3. Performance issues in RTS mode. 4. There is basically zero FPS combat. Either you absolutely destroy an enemy, or it destroys you. TTK varies between zero and infinite unless you are dealing with superheavy units. 5. Balancing issues all through the board, scorpions need a total rework, you should not have a tanky unit be fast and have a strong AOE ranged attack. 6. The spawn - teleport - class choice needs to be a single, convenient integrated. With that I mean you should be within 2 steps of everything, if I wanted to run a mile I'd go for a jog. 7. Player characters are too slow for humans unless you're in a vehicle. A personal on-demand, anywhere on the map, spawnable vehicle (balance it by making it do no damage, and have a long startup time) needs to exist. 8. AI either instantly snipe you or cannot hit the broad side of a barn to save its life. This operates to the detriment of the commander and the FPS player. 9. Targetting enemies works more as a "attack suggestion" than a direct command. Rework needed. It is a cool concept but its missing the basics so the player has a bad experience of a good game.
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Great idea and really solid execution. This game absolutely shows it is in early access and there are a few bugs and hiccups along the way as you play but the core system and gameplay is sound. I love the seamless transition from RTS to FPS as you play and it really helps since sometimes the AI and pathing of certain units (harvesters usually) is a little wonky from time to time so you can hop right in and move them to set them back on their way. The sounds and visuals are pretty awesome and with a good machine and nice large monitors there's an awe when you watch a siege tank make a direct hit on a queen while you're in FPS as a rifleman fighting for his life. Now allow me to bring some hopefully constructive criticism and express my issues and concerns. Air units: The AI on air units is a little suicidal. I've watched a lot of my gunships nosedive in on an enemy in the hopes that booping it with its nose would just stop whatever threats I send it after. Turns out that doesn't work very well and usually ends with a big fireball while I watch the carnage from the commanders view. Buildings: we need a way to cancel building construction and sell them to salvage a bad situation or save ourselves something if our harvesting operations get taken out, Building placement is also a little odd, i find myself trying to place a building to see i cannot do it, but when i rotate the building its fine despite the same footprint and clearance seems to be fine. Diversity of armies. We have 3 armies. 2 human and one bug. The two human factions are the exact same thing. I could see if they were similar but right now they are exact copies. It would be nice to see two diverse human factions to really spice up the battlefield. Of course this is still in early access so I am confident we will see some awesome changes in the future, Maps: I like the maps, I like the aesthetic. However, each map is just a slightly different flavor of desert. I understand the idea since the story is the battles on the same planet so it makes sense, but I would love to see tundra, tropical, urban and some more green environments (the green storm map doesn't count, its still a desert with a hue change and lightning, but awesome still) Ability to add more AI commanders: I like the three commander free for all and it's my favorite way to play right now but imagine 4 to 8 commanders and armies on the field at the same time. I can only imagine what an undertaking that would be and the amount of work and resources needed to make it all work smoothly. The warzone would be spectacular if something like this could be done. weapon recoil and feeling: When you take control of an infantry unit, the weapons feel a little light and feathery. You squeeze the trigger and you are shown a rather splendid display of lights and pews flying all over the place. This is awesome and makes it obvious where your units are shooting and where you are being attacked from. However, there doesn't seem to be a lot of Oompf from the weapons. The heavy and marksman are the closest to a really good feedback from the audio. That's just me nitpicking but I've played with friends and they are more of an FPS crowd and I'm always the commander since I've been playing RTS games since the original CnC games. I know the developer has a roadmap (I should have probably looked at this before i put this review) and plans to tackle mod support after 1.0 release so I am really excited for this in the future. Maybe this game might be like many bethesda games were the modding community breathes some serious life into this game after full release. I would be so happy to see old CnC units on the field like the Mammoth Mk2 and nod Artillery just raining doom through the map. A tiberian sun setting would be perfect. We already have desert maps, a map that basically is enveloped in an ION storm and the futuristic aesthetic that matches with it. If any future modder or the dev reads this and wants an idea, Walker units would be so amazing to see on the field. I understand this would be really hard to do. I can only imagine the nightmare of keeping the units balanced and not falling over on the smallest obstacle. I recommend this game, I look forward to the future and the progress to be made and I wish the best of luck and good health to the dev as he continues improving and adding more content. Great game, play it with friends and I'll see you all on the battlefield.
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Played Solo modes only (not too interested in Multiplyer myself). Pros: - It has a Solo Mode (I actually wasn't expecting one). - Gorgeous visual. - Punchy actions. - Epic cinematic battle moments. - Fun vehicles. Cons (and hopefully devs can make some adjustments to these): - Simple AI RTS player (run straight into their targets often or just wander around seemingly aimlessly, though this may not be relevant in Multiplayer). - Terrible RTS unit pathfinding (often runs backward and get stuck in rocks, and positioning is so important in this game because they only shoot with their line of sights and explosive rounds could hurt them if not positioned well. Harvesters often get stuck in their Refinery buildings). - No unit behavior control. (needs cease fire mode with the nuke trucks, formations, evasive combat behaviors, and "go straight" move options instead of trying to "pathfind". There is no reason why a flying unit should go the opposite direction from where I told it to go. Bug units also have their own behaviors during combat, making me lose control and the units because 1 is charging on its own while the other 4 are stuck in rocks). - RTS UI units grouping automatically when camera is far away (Another element that makes player lose control of the situation and harder to read which units are in that cluster). - Terribly balanced bug units (close range, bigger-than-human targets trying to hit ranged units that are smaller or faster or stronger targets, takes longer to turn than humans, bouncy physic and gravity, results in terrible early game experience with them and I decided I don't want to know what it's like in later stages. It needs larger melee attack arc and able to lunge towards attacking targets and stick firmer. I also can't order them to attack and charge at a specific enemy, which is a problem because their advantage is hoard melee combat). - Map too big for individual bug players. Dies often and gotta run all the way back. - Limited RTS map utility (I don't know where my units are in the little map, and no unit or camera control in the big map). - Terrible story delivery (A really long info dump in the intro, meaning it's happening every time you turn on the game. Story's a mix of several popular sci-fi fictions so nothing original either, they're almost uncomfortably familiar. AI art slide show, and the narrator's voice electronically modified to sound like a sci-fi villain in the late 20th century's TV show for kids. There is a "story mode" game as well. It's one of those, "You are here, go there, it's important, well done, and repeat" type). - Quitter AI player (I'm enjoying the cinematic siege and the game just ends in the middle of it, then the game restart timer ends before the victory music ends, overall making things feel finishing prematurely. I understand that this is the default multiplayer behavior for us gamers with addiction for perpetual dopamine stimulation. But I'd say this would feel nicer if it can be adjusted in the server setting. - Poor FPS aiming sight visibility (Very bright and glaring yellow-white environment, targets are far away and are dots made of several wobbly pixels, and my guns shoot at a bright half-transparent blue dot. With so many well-made visual decisions, I'm willing to believe that this is intentional to impair players from aiming too well since AI units usually spray-and-pray. But this strains the eyes, and us FPS shooters don't blink for hours as it is. Not healthy. Options would be nice. Color and transparency slide bar. Maybe even shapes based on real-life scopes since these bullets have speed and drops). Substantially more cons than pros, resulting in a mostly frustrating gaming experience at the current stage. But when things do go well, there's nothing else that looks this epic. Cons are understandable due to its mid-development stage of a very ambitious project. It's also good to see my favorite dead genre coming back with revenant fury. I hope this game reaches many of its potentials.
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RTS/FPS hybrid is a very difficult genre to blend as has been seen several times in the past. This game nails a lot of things: the aesthetic for the humans is great. The world is beautiful and inspires a sense of awe I haven't felt since Homeworld 1 . The music is spectacular. This game has a good start but there are a few things that really bog the gameplay down. Its been in EA for a little less than a year but there are some glaring problems that need to get addressed- some small, many core to the structure to the game. Some of the issues that jump to mind right now: Maps- Maps are too big- some of them are way too big like Monument Valley. It takes forever to do anything on these. The bigger maps also have a lot of geometry oversights and other bugs. Guns- There is a huge problem with the hit feedback system. You need to know if you are hitting your target. This feedback should be CoD style hit markers instead of the random health bar popping up in the corner of the screen. Players need to know if they are hitting the target because you are engaging something usually far away and the bullet drop off makes it hard to judge if you are hitting or not. Vehicles- Vehicles, especially the light ones, are way too floaty and the bounce off of every rock and take damage. The handling needs to be more precise because right now driving the wheeled vehicles sucks badly. Also players need feedback when they hit an object or damage is dealt to the vehicle, for instance when the vehicle lands after a jump you need a suspension crunch noise, when you hit a rock you need a metal scraping noise, etc. IMO the devs need to focus only on the Human VS Human aspect of this game and get it nailed down then move on to focusing on the alien component. There is just too much of this core game that needs to get fleshed out. I really suggest looking at Renegade X and how it handled infantry and vehicle combat as a good starting place. A lot of what is here is good but I'm afraid that this project may become too ambitious and in the process it wont get a lot of its core game play systems fixed. In its current state I cant really recommend it because it is not fun for more than 15 to 30 minutes of goofing around. However you can really feel there is something different and special here and I hope the devs keep working on it as they have been.
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It's a fun game with so much potential that it's almost sad to see how it plays currently. I've played a few hours and honestly had some fun, but it has some frustrating parts that make me want to stop playing even when it runs perfectly. It requires: -an overhaul of the RTS aspect of the game (an attack button, defend button, a patrol feature would be nice) basic RTS features are missing and it make it really hard to command troops. The game needs to embrace RTS before FPS, because most matches are played by a few people so the RTS aspect matters much more. -the game is not optimized very well, but it still runs on my outdated PC fairly well on low graphics -the AI sucks, and you'll find that it is very inconsistent and it gets very frustrating when the shrimp and harvesters get stuck on each other or in terrain. Overall, the game needs to go back to the basics of the genre to attract more players, it is very hard to have fun when your army of vehicles is moving so close together that it drives over each other and runs into walls, let alone the fact that you cant get the AI to target a specific enemy (which is very important to win decisive battles) Best of luck to the developer this game is exactly what i would want from a Dune-like RTS game if only it would live up to the baseline of RTS.
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Last Updates
| Steam data | 20 December 2024 00:46 |
|---|---|
| SteamSpy data | 21 December 2024 17:19 |
| Steam price | 23 December 2024 12:35 |
| Steam reviews | 22 December 2024 08:01 |
Online players
62
Developer
Martin 'Dram' Melichárek
Publisher
Bohemia Interactive
Release
03 May 2023
Platforms