Derek (Kael) has been super busy with the general expansion of Stardock Entertainment over the past 3 years. AS I type this, there are 7 concurrent game projects going on. Back in 2008, I dreamt of having a second team. Here we are, 6 years later with seven teams. I’m writing this from the airplane on my way to visit one of the new studios (one that hasn’t been announced yet).
So what does that mean for fans of the Elemental universe? The answer is, lots of good news. While Galactic Civilizations III heads towards its March alpha, the Elemental team is hard at work on a new DLC pack for this Winter tentatively called “Monarchs” which will bring more channelers to the world for players to play with. In addition, we expect to announce the third game in the Elemental fantasy universe this year. It will be dramatically different from War of Magic or Fallen Enchantress.
Without giving too much away about the new game, which we expect to formally announce this Spring, its planned feature set includes:
- Radically different races (players won’t design units ala WOM/FE but in exchange each unit is custom crafted and visually stunning)
- Crafting (the player STARTS with the Forge of the Overlord and getting recipes and loot now mean being able to craft some really cool stuff)
- The player starts by choosing their sovereign and deciding what spell book he or she has. The more spell books of a particular type, the more likely the player will be able to use their lore to research rarer spells in that category.
- No tech tree. Instead, the available units are based on how you construct your cities.
- Each hero has his or her own unique talent tree (there won’t be a “Defender” class for instance) that players can then use to customize their heroes.
- Because of the stronger emphasis on magic, vastly more spells will be available strategically and tactically. Sovereign spells are available in every battle as your sovereign, thanks to the Forge of the Overlord, can “see” anything in the world that his/her units can see (as a result, your sovereign interacts with the world indirectly from the capital and doesn’t appear as a playable unit).
It’s been in development for awhile, prior to LH. LH was originally supposed to be a minor expansion on FE but as you’ve probably gathered, we really love making these games. The next update to LH is in the works, pathfinding improvements, performance and some other updates are scheduled.