War Wind

The basic gameplay is very similar to other real-time strategy games, such as the Warcraft series. Each game begins with a clan leader, and typically some workers and a token defense force. The player must use either their workers to build structures and mine for resources, destroy opposing factions, or escort key units to a different location. Some unique features differentiate the game from others in the genre; for example, in order to get any combat unit other than mercenaries (who are quick mounted units hired from an inn), a worker must be trained at a particular type of building.

In order to receive a higher-level combat unit, a lower-level unit must be promoted at a specific facility. Additionally, individual units can be physically augmented with cybernetic or natural enhancements to speed, strength, resilience, stealth, and vision. The purpose for these bionic upgrades is to encourage more strategic conflicts, wherein a player must use a small number of powerful units, instead of building a larger, more simplistic force and rushing the opponent.

War Wind takes place on the world of Yavaun, where four races have ambivalently coexisted for millennia. The Tha' Roon—purple Nāga-like oppressors, overlords, and despots of the planet—have dominated the other races of Yavaun and erected a ruling domain known as the Empire; in particular, the Tha' Roon have enslaved the gentle and flora-like Eaggra, forcing the Eaggra to act as their builders and engineers under coercion by the Tha' Roon's acting military force, the elephantine Obblinox. The Tha' Roon accomplished their subjugation of the Obblinox through force of technological supremacy (a knowledge in which they partially shared with the Obblinox in the form of cybernetic replacements for amputations) and the exploitation of the Obblinox's strong intrinsic belief system of loyalty and a strict societal hierarchy. Lastly are the race of the reclusive and traditionalist Shama' Li, monk-like practitioners of spiritual and ancient magic, who desire to unify the four races into a single deific species that physically represents a combination of them all—NagaRom.

Yavaun has been under the oppressive control of the Empire—a merciless regime founded and led by the Tha' Roon—for a millennium, known by all as the Thousand Years. The Tha' Roon were once feared for their cruel and ruthless combat prowess, which they used to establish the very creation of the Empire; however, over the centuries, they have relied almost exclusively on the Obblinox as their force of arms. The Eaggra, their enslavement by will of the Tha' Roon and enforced by the muscle of the Obblinox, were obliged to construct and forge the original foundation of the Empire from the ground up, and have since been forced to maintain and expand it further throughout Yavaun. This reliance on the Obblinox for military power and the Eaggra for virtually all labor has progressively deteriorated the Tha' Roon's once unequaled self-sufficiency.

The game was a finalist for Computer Gaming World's and CNET Gamecenter's 1996 "Strategy Game of the Year" awards, both of which ultimately went to Civilization II. Gamecenter's editors called it the deepest real-time game at that time.