RTS specialist Petroglyph has announced Forged Battalion, a new strategy game with a strong focus on unit customisation and building your own faction. As you can see in the deeply '90s-feeling trailer above, which evokes C&C in the choice of music and even the introduction of the logo, you can alter every unit's chassis with different weapons, locomotor types and regenerative armour.

You're part of a resistance group, taking the world back from a military force called The Collective at the end of the 21st century. The studio promises a 'persistent tech tree', meaning that each battle will contribute to your overall progress, helping to unlock new blueprints. There'll also be co-op and competitive multiplayer for up to eight players, what's being called a 'dynamic story campaign' and Steam Workshop support. They also tease superweapons, which were always a daft specialty of Westwood's C&C games.

Forged Battalion will launch in 2018 on Steam Early Access, and should arrive with at least five campaign missions, different multiplayer modes and five multiplayer maps. They're expecting to stay in Early Access for six months.

Petroglyph was founded by former Westwood staff, and this isn't its only recent stab at a classic-looking RTS—2016's 8-Bit Armies offered retro-styled warfare, plus Ian said 2015's Grey Goo "excels" as "a revival of a once popular genre" in our review. Meanwhile, its classic Star Wars RTS Empire At War had its multiplayer servers switched back on last month. Check out some Forged Battalion screens below:

Update: We've also had a first look at Forged Battalion. Check it out here.