Elemental: Reforged

[Blake00]

Stardock have announced a new game in their 4X TBS Master of Magic & Civ like Elemental series called Elemental: Reforged. It appears to be a merger of the 3 previous Elemental games (War of Magic, Fallen Enchantress, & Sorcerer King) attempting to merge the best qualities of each of them into one huge game without the old 32bit memory limit bottlenecks.

The graphics don't look much different and users have commented that it's like they're just upscaling the original assets. CEO Brad Wardell/Frogboy pretty much confirms in their first Steam dev diary the studios that they outsourced the original ones to are gone, and presumably it was deemed too expensive to redo from scratch. Bit of a shame as it might hurt them a bit with attracting new fans (especially now days as it will be compared to Age of Wonders 4 and Endless Legend 2) but judging by the positive comments on steam articles and the trailer their existing core fanbase is excited and doesn't mind as the gameplay particularly in Fallen Enchantress was excellent!

EDIT: Brad has confirmed in the dev diary comments that they will be refreshing all the graphics with updated assets. That's a relief! Strange that they put a trailer out before doing that though!

Dev diary:

Steam :: Elemental: Reforged :: Dev Journal #01 - Elemental: Reforged

Once upon a time… In 2008, right after we released Galactic Civilizations II and Sins of a Solar Empire, we at Stardock felt pretty good about ourselves. We had assembled an amazing team of people that could make amazing games and we thought there was nothing we couldn’t do. Hubris attracts...

steamcommunity.com

@The_J

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

that's a very candid announcement. they also mentioned that some of the developers joined other studios such as Mohawk Games (of Old World fame) and Oxide (Ara: History Untold), but most of the original team is still at Stardock.

those graphics are really dated, even when upscaled. I sadly predict this game won't have much appeal beyond their old hardcore fanbase

 

[Senethro]

What has Stardock even done recently? (and by recently I mean the past decade)

I remember GalCiv2 making some waves due to good AI, but I bounced off the game hard. I think I gave the 3rd Elemental two playthroughs and walked.

They just feel completely irrelevant in the Hooded Horse era.

 

[Patine]

They just feel completely irrelevant in the Hooded Horse era.

Hooded Horse has it's own, "era," now?

 

[Patine]

The graphics don't look much different and users have commented that it's like they're just upscaling the original assets. CEO Brad Wardell/Frogboy pretty much confirms in their first Steam dev diary the studios that they outsourced the original ones to are gone, and presumably it was deemed too expensive to redo from scratch. Bit of a shame as it might hurt them a bit with attracting new fans (especially now days as it will be compared to Age of Wonders 4 and Endless Legend 2) but judging by the positive comments on steam articles and the trailer their existing core fanbase is excited and doesn't mind as the gameplay particularly in Fallen Enchantress was excellent!

those graphics are really dated, even when upscaled. I sadly predict this game won't have much appeal beyond their old hardcore fanbase

And, personally, stellar and, "up-to-date," graphics have never been one of the top priorities for my gaming experience and choices.

 

[Senethro]

Yeah, I'm the official guy who calls these things, and I say the Hooded Horse era began about 2 years ago. They're achieving consistency in finding and supporting small devs in the strategy genre to reach release.

 

[The_J]

Ara/Oxide is now with Stardock .

For this, I think they might have started the announcement wrong, as at the end it says it's with old graphics. This is less of a new title, but more of a remaster. Although they seem to remaster the mechanics, and not the graphics, which for some games is actually an appropriate idea.

 

[lymond]

Interesting...this was originally a very troubled release back when it was just Elemental. Then Kael came in and made it playable, changing the name to Fallen Enchantress. I played every iteration back to the first, which I think I got for free. "Sorcerer" was a separate game, though it used the same Elemental engine, and was in the spirit of Fall From Heaven, with, if I recall, the whole Apocalypse mechanic as the main driver of the game. (That was optional in FFH, but here the gameplay was built around that)

 

[Dale]

.this was originally a very troubled release back when it was just Elemental.

I nominate this comment for "CFC Understatement Of The Year"!

 

[Patine]

I nominate this comment for "CFC Understatement Of The Year"!

The year's not over yet.

 

[King Flevance]

They are in desperate need to update their graphics. I still enjoy Fallen Enchantress, but I can't support these graphics when they were a little rough even in 2012 but held some charm as a result. It actually shocks me that they haven't bothered to update them. I really like Stardock and I am not really picky about graphics, but I do want to see some evolution in that department by "part 4" of a 15 year old series.

 

[Blake00]

Hmm I just noticed this comment on the dev diary.. interesting.. I mean if what we're seeing isn't something like what we're gonna get at release, then why put the trailer & screenshots out now.. or maybe they've only just changed their mind after seeing all the negative comments lol

 

[Blake00]

ahh good.. people are pressing him on what he means..

 

[Pedro P]

I remember advocating for elemental back in my high school days, when it was announced. I was really in love with the idea of building your own custom civilization.
In the end, it never delivered on that, really, and to this day, I still seek that highly customizable Fantasy Stellaris experience that nobody seems to want to offer.

 

[King Flevance]

Well fantastic news on the graphics update! I dont need much but those character models are horrible. I hope this game is amazing. It has really good potential.