SpellForce III |OT| RTS + RPG

[derFeef]

General Information & Story:
SpellForce 3 - The perfect blend between RTS and RPG!
It is the year 518, before the Convocation. The rebellion of the four royal houses has been quashed, but the war has devastated the country.

And as if that wasn't enough, the Queen was seriously injured and has been lying in a coma ever since, so now the Lord Marshal is ruling with an iron fist in his attempt to restore stability to the country.

Although your father was one of the rebel mages, as a member of the royal army you have remained loyal to the Queen. Will you uphold your responsibilities toward Nortander?

Platform - PC: Steam, GOG

Features:

• Innovative Mix:
  Unique gameplay blending RTS and RPG naturally together
  
• Create & Customize:
  Create your own hero and choose between distinct skill trees
  
• Build to Fight:
  Raise your own army and fight epic mass battles
  
• Epic Storyline:
  Immerse yourself in a rich world - Unravel the secrets behind the current situation in Nortander. Explore Eo, a fully-realized world filled with interesting characters and heart-wrenching stories.
  
• Make new friends
  Assemble your party from a diverse cast of companions that not only complement your skills in interesting ways but also have an impact on the narrative. Manage their skills and equipment to ensure victory on the battlefield.
  
• Choose your side:
  Strengthen and command one of three factions – Elves, Orcs and Humans. Prepare your troops and fight the mother of all battles. Play strategically, taking advantage of terrain, troop formations, visibility, scouting, etc.
  
• Experience an epic tale:
  Enjoy a fully-voiced 30+ hour campaign on your own or with friends in the campaign coop mode. Face opponents of all skills in the online battles.
  
• Multiplayer:
  Strong multiplayer component with various modes - Compete against each other in the PvP and Domination mode or play cooperative either together on one faction or classic where everybody plays a faction.

Videos & Media:
Orc Faction
Human Faction
Elven Faction

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Review thread

 

[Graciaus]

Zero replies? The mix of RPG/RTS gameplay has me interested. I watched a 16 minute preview of the free weekend and thought it looked cool.

 

[Starlatine]

RPG/RTS mix would be something like Majesty? I freaking loved Majesty

 

[derFeef]

RPG/RTS mix would be something like Majesty? I freaking loved Majesty

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The first Spellforce felt very much like Majesty to me but it's also very different as in you play RTS on a big RPG map with linear mission goal. As in Majesty it was the other way around.

 

[Ragona]

Shame this doesnt receive alot of recognition (yet).
First reviews and player feedback is alot better than I have anticipated (despite the performance issues and bugs? game seems to get alot of patches).
Hope this does well enough for THQ nordic to pump out more of those small/mid tier developed classics!

 

[Protome]

Do I need to play the first two or should I just jump in with this? It looks gorgeous and I need to scratch an RTS itch.

 

[City 17]

Do I need to play the first two or should I just jump in with this? It looks gorgeous and I need to scratch an RTS itch.

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No need to play the first two, not that they're not good. I loved the first one at the time, it really is the perfect blend of the two genres.

 

[Protome]

No need to play the first two, not that they're not good. I loved the first one at the time, it really is the perfect blend of the two genres.

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Ooft, high praise. Added it to my wishlist, i'll pick it up when my christmas break starts!
I might pick up the first two if they are on a gog sale or something.

 

[Nyx]

Bought it and played 2 hours of the campaign so far. Looks beautiful and plays like expected really.

 

[Chamaeleonx]

I own the first two and actually had to click the Steam page to know if this is a new or old game... . =x

Maybe don't link to the Platinum edition on Steam. Not sure if they include 3 in this.

Otherwise, going from the first two titles I can recommend it, it certainly is a fun little game and got better over the years. Hopefully the "genre type" gets bigger over the years.

 

[Flevance]

Really liked the beta, but I'll be busy with Xenoblade 2 and BoTW's DLCs for the rest of the month. I'll grab it when it goes on sale next year

 

[nacimento]

Really interested in getting this, the first two games were brilliant. It was a pity that EA butchered Phenomic like they did.

But the lack of dark elves is really disappointing, they were amazing. Specially in Spellforce 1 they looked sooo good in the booklet, I've always liked dark elves in games after this even though none reached the Spellforce hype.

 

[Ushay]

I wonder if this could ever work on console?

I remember playing the original Spellforce back when I had a PC. Was a great game despite its flaws.

 

[Chamaeleonx]

I wonder if this could ever work on console?

I remember playing the original Spellforce back when I had a PC. Was a great game despite its flaws.

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Brought a PC back in the day to play the first title.
Might work if you make it more third person oriented and make the building part easier with hotkey's etc. .

 

[Alric]

It definitely looks cool. I want to check out some more gameplay videos but from the few short ones I saw it looked right up my alley.

 

[Ushay]

Brought a PC back in the day to play the first title.
Might work if you make it more third person oriented and make the building part easier with hotkey's etc. .

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Does anyone remember Sacrifice on the PC? Now that concept could work extremely well for a console RPG/Strategy!

 

[Alex Connolly]

Pretty tempted. Looks gorgeous.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

I'm having mixed feelings so far.

The visuals are mostly gorgeous, the story reasonably intriguing if a bit stereotypical, voice acting is surprisingly good from what I've heard and the mix between typical party based RPG and base-building RTS is likable enough...
The only flaw (and it's not a minor one) is that battles up to this point seem quite confusing and hard to "read". There's a lot going on, the screen is always rather busy with details and effects and no tactical pause seems to be allowed even in the single player campaign (you can pause the game, but that opens the Options menu and doesn't let you give commands).

My early impressions are mostly positive, but I'm wondering if I'll get used to these issues or they'll just get worse as missions will escalate in complexity over time.

 

[tumour_love]

you can hold alt on enemies or bros and it slows down time

 

[Holundrian]

Curious if this is good I loved the previous entries but before Jowood went under they kinda fucked around with bad addons etc.

 

[shiftplusone]

I loved spellforce 2 but missed the beta weekend for this.

Not much to go on impressions in this thread, and can't check steam reviews, but any hope that it's good?

 

[Gabbo]

Does anyone remember Sacrifice on the PC? Now that concept could work extremely well for a console RPG/Strategy!

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As with all Shiny games of that era, crazy ambitious and not easy to master, but satisfying. Is this game reminicient of Sacrifice?

I believe I own 2 on gog. I should really give it a go, just to see.

 

[Chamaeleonx]

Does anyone remember Sacrifice on the PC? Now that concept could work extremely well for a console RPG/Strategy!

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Sadly don't know Sacrifice. Therefore I can't comment on how the concept or controls would work in comparison.

Can't make threads, but I want to make one for Paraworld in the future. =D

 

[Fawz]

First time I hear about the game, but from the feature set and trailers it looked really neat. Picked it up today and GOG and I'm really impressed. There's a lot of polish, particularly with the menus and UI.

I'm not very fan in but right now the base mechanics work well, though I'm liking the RPG hero aspects more. Curious to see how it holds up in co-op

 

[Tizoc]

If anyone's interested, it is EUR 29/CAD 43 over at CDKeys. The key is ROW region so should redeem fine.
https://www.cdkeys.com/pc/games/spellforce-3-pc-steam

 

[KonradLaw]

Shame this doesnt receive alot of recognition (yet).
First reviews and player feedback is alot better than I have anticipated (despite the performance issues and bugs? game seems to get alot of patches).
Hope this does well enough for THQ nordic to pump out more of those small/mid tier developed classics!

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Well..THQ Nordic is all in on bringing back classic PC franchises. Add-on to Titan Quest and SpellForce 3 is already out. And next year we'll get new Guild and Aquanox and they;re also working on bringing Jagged Alliance.
Anyway..really happy SpellForce III turned out so good. Loved the previous games in the series and I will get the sequel for Christmas break.

Also...I was very dissapointed than when people were complaining about EA clossing Visceral and listing all the studios they killed hardly anyone ever remembered about Phemonic.

 

[derFeef]

Spellforce is a Christmas game for me, will get it during that time, but looking very much forward to it. Playing it feels always fresh and unique.

Does anyone remember Sacrifice on the PC? Now that concept could work extremely well for a console RPG/Strategy!

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Loved Sacrifice.
Brutal Legend copied most of the concepts from Sacrifice if you haven't played that.

 

[snail_maze]

Ah, it's out? I will check out some media of it later, really liked the first

 

[Wheelsner]

Bought this yesterday on impulse and having a surprisingly good time with it so far.

Have only done one of the RTS sections, so I'm not sure whether they'll gain enough depth to stay interesting for the rest of the game, but overall it seems a very compelling package.

- Production values are excellent, and it looks at least as good in motion as in screenshots. Animation perhaps the weakest link here.
- Music has also been good, but I've been most pleasantly surprised by the V/A and writing. Was expecting traditional fantasy with a layer of cheese on top, but while it won't win any awards for originality so far, it's at worst decently written and voiced modern fantasy which has done a good job of keeping me invested in the characters and story.

The only flaw (and it's not a minor one) is that battles up to this point seem quite confusing and hard to "read". There's a lot going on, the screen is always rather busy with details and effects and no tactical pause seems to be allowed even in the single player campaign (you can pause the game, but that opens the Options menu and doesn't let you give commands).

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This was my main issue too, as the battles can be quite hectic and readability poor. Initially thought this might be a deal breaker but a trawl through the menu has improved matters quite a bit. For anyone else having difficulty, by default holding ALT over an enemy slow the game down but doesn't pause, whilst displaying a menu of special character skills. The behaviour of this can be changed to 'pause' in the menu, essentially pausing whenever you need to target an enemy (see below).

https://s7.postimg.org/z25a4l74r/20171209130732_1.jpg

Made a world of difference to my experience.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

I have to say that the more I play, the more impressed I'm with the writing/acting.
I'd be tempted to say that this is better than a fantasy RTS has any right to be, in that area.

 

[derFeef]

nice to see positive impressions. makes me want to play earlier than planned.

 

[Cor]

this game is baffling to me.

i mean, the VA is damn solid, the dialogue is written in a pretty decent manner, the levels are gorgeous as all hell, and the game is exactly what i wanted Dawn of War 3 to be, a hero rts with even more rpg elements. But i can't see how thq nordic looked at this and went "yes, this will sell well."

Sure am glad that they funded it tho.

 

[Lunaray]

I enjoyed the first game. I had no idea they were still making Spellforce games after JoWood got acquired.

 

[Alastor3]

The world feel so empty... like there's only a few good npc to talk to in the entire world, from what i've seen from videos

 

[texhnolyze]

The game has already received so many updates and patches in a matter of days.

It's always good to see when devs putting so much effort on post-launch support like this.

 

[visvim]

the game is very good. Not quite as good as Divinity OS2 (it's closest competitor perhaps?) but still above and beyond 99% of releases this year.

I'm about 7 hours in so far and the story is intriguing.

Mack from WAB loves it too:

 

[g23]

This game is awesome! Perfect blend of RPG and RTS. The production values are top notch too! It's like Divinity and Warcraft III had a lovechild mixed with some really good writing and fantasy lore. For those of you on the fence, I say go for it if you're a fan of RPG's.

 

[Cor]

Also, for those that are worried about diving in:

Yes, there are respec potions.

(every lengthy rpg should have respec potions tbh)

 

[derFeef]

They are patching this almost every day. Good, good!
RPS is positive on the game as well: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2017/12/13/spellforce-3-review/

 

[Fawz]

I've seen a couple of complaints, particularly on the steam forums, about the game being buggy. Maybe I've been lucky but so far it's been a flawless experience. If anything it's one of the more polished games I've played with very extensive options, QOL customisation options and a really clean UI with Gifs for Tutorials. I haven't tried the Online though and I do have a pretty good Gaming PC.

Eitherway overall I'm loving the game the more I play. The gameplay is pretty solid and mixes RPG & RTS a lot better than I thought, very reminiscent of Warcraft 3. The story is much more interesting than I thought, mostly thanks to the good voice acting and choice based dialogue.

 

[Nyx]

6 hours in and the game is indeed very good so far.

 

[WellbornWarrior]

After the beta weekend they had my intention, despite the bugs. It captures the spirit of the first game perfectly after the series kind of fell flat with the last addons for Spellforce 2.

Can anyone who has the game already tell me how the Coop in this game works? Can the full story be played with 2 or more people or ist just some special maps?

 

[isual]

what is the story like ?

 

[Cor]

what is the story like ?

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remember in the first dragon age, how the mages were seen as threats that should be exterminated? yarp.

also happens that you play as the son of the mage that's apparently giving people a reason to want to exterminate all mages.

 

[Deleted member 6137]

Let's say that I am the worst RTS player in the world, but I am interested in the rpg aspects of the game. Should I bother with this?

 

[Cor]

Let's say that I am the worst RTS player in the world, but I am interested in the rpg aspects of the game. Should I bother with this?

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the 2h steam trial should be enough to get you to the rts bits. As far as ive seen, appears to be quite simple, with the focus staying on the hero units.

 

[LaTasse]

I bought the game a few days ago but I still have to finish Grim Dawn first.
I really look forward to it

 

[Deleted member 6137]

the 2h steam trial should be enough to get you to the rts bits. As far as ive seen, appears to be quite simple, with the focus staying on the hero units.

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I'll have to think about this, I guess.

 

[Baalzebup]

Huh... Maybe I should get hyped again. Even with all the jank, I've played and liked every SpellForce entry up to Dragon Storm. This being before the Convocation, it shouldn't even matter that I haven't played whatever was released after Dragon Storm

 

[sandboxgod]

Man I would love to support these devs but I am absolutely weighed down by Persona 5 and then next I'm hitting Xenoblade 2 I just have no time ;(