Daedalic Entertainment is best known for point-and-click adventures, but earlier this year it announced that it's going to take a shot at the RTS genre with A Year of Rain. The game will feature a fairly standard-sounding setup of three distinct factions building bases, recruiting armies, and fighting over resources, but puts a focus on hero units and team-based competitive play with a 2v2 skirmish mode, leaderboards, replays, and a league system all planned for launch.

If you'd like to get a taste of what it's like before the launch later this year, signups for a closed beta are now being taken at beta.ayearofrain.com. A start time hasn't been announced but applicants will be admitted into the beta in waves when it goes live, and Daedalic clarified that there's no preorder offers guaranteeing admittance: If you want in, you sign up and hope for the best. (As far as I can tell, you can't preorder the game yet anyway.)

For those who prefer to watch, Daedalic is also holding a pre-release "Undead Champs" tournament, which is actually underway now. The tourney will conclude in a grand finale that will begin at 7 pm CEST (10 am PT/1 pm ET) on September 28, and will be livestreamed on Twitch. VODs of previous competitions will also be shared through the channel when they become available.

There will be a campaign in A Year of Rain: Daedalic hasn't gone into the details of that yet, saying only that will tell a "compelling multi-layered story," but it's "designed for a co-op experience" as well, so it'll be interesting to see how that works out. A website at ayearofrain.com is on the way but not quite ready yet (the beta signup page is working, though), so for now you can get the details on Steam.

First-time RTS developer Daedelic Entertainment, best known for its point-and-click adventure games, has set itself a bit of a challenge with A Year of Rain. It's a co-op RTS where players control hero-led armies across a campaign and skirmishes, and it's already gunning for a slice of the esports pie. 

Three factions are fighting over a pretty miserable-looking realm, clashing in battles that promise to mix traditional RTS shenanigans like gathering resources, building and upgrading a base, and recruiting an army with a focus on legendary heroes and teamwork. 

It will be "esports-ready" at launch, says Daedelic, with a league system, leaderboards, competitive seasons, replays and an observer mode. A 2v2 skirmish mode is being designed specifically for competitive matches, too. 

Games designed with esports in mind are often the least successful when it comes to their focus, and RTS games continue to be largely played for their singleplayer campaigns. Even StarCraft 2, the most popular RTS for almost a decade, relies on its exceptional trio of solo campaigns. A multiplayer-focused esports RTS, then, seems like quite a risk, especially when it's the studio's very first game in the genre. 

A Year of Rain's co-op campaign can be played solo, however, so it's not entirely dependent on you finding some mates or randos to play with. Every mission is designed for two players, but Player 2 doesn't need to be human. The AI can take control of the second hero, though hopefully we'll still have some way to give orders and work together. 

As well as the campaign and the 2v2 skirmish, there's also an asymmetric co-op mode, with two heroes taking on two whole armies, full of units and buildings. I assume the heroes will get a bit of a buff to take on this particular challenge. They each come with unique, powerful abilities and skills both magical and martial in all the modes.

I'm cautiously intrigued! I'm staunchly solo when it comes to all but a few strategy games, but I do love the occasional co-op comp stomp, which this promises to have in spades. We've got a dearth of good RTS games, and I've got a big itch that needs scratching.  

Keep an eye out for A Year of Rain's Early Access launch this year. In the meantime, there's a Steam page with more details.