Elemental: Reforged News

[p]Play Early Access Now[/p][p][/p][p][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][/p][p][/p][h2]Get up to 80% off Elemental titles during the 2025 Publisher Sale[/h2][p]View Entire Sale[/p][p][/p][p][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][/p][h2]Other Elemental deals:[/h2][p][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][/p]

[h2]Elemental: Reforged, Remaster of the Classic Fantasy Strategy Game Series, Enters Early Access Today[/h2][p][/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p][/p][p]Stardock Entertainment announced that its remaster of the Elemental fantasy strategy game series, Elemental: Reforged, entered Early Access today.  The classic sandbox turn-based 4X game series puts the player in the role of a sovereign of a fledgling kingdom in a world that has been devastated by a war of magic.
[/p][p]“Elemental: Reforged is the culmination of the vision Stardock had for this series since we started work on it over 15 years ago,” said Bradley Wardell, CEO of Stardock and designer of Elemental: Reforged. “The design of the game was ahead of its time, but limited by PC consumer hardware of the late 2000s. Now with a 64-bit engine, updated graphical fidelity, and a combination of features from all previous releases in the Elemental series, Reforged is exactly what we hoped the original game would be.”[/p][p][/p][p]“Each game had certain key features that the others couldn’t fit.  For instance, War of Magic has family dynasties where characters could get married, have children and the children visibly carried a blending of the parents. That meant even trolls and humans could have children. Probably best not to dwell too much on that,” said Wardell. “For Fallen Enchantress we focused on detailed unit stats and well-paced tactical combat.  For Sorcerer King we had crafting and quests.”[/p][p][/p][p]Today’s Early Access Build is designed to showcase the new combined game and give players the opportunity to give feedback on which parts of the game they want Stardock to further develop and enhance.[/p][p][/p][p]“We wanted to get players into the game as soon as possible,” said Wardell. “As a way of making good on the promise of the original game’s ambitious design, our aim is to make sure we shape this the way our fans want to see.”[/p][p][/p][h3]Elemental: Reforged Key Features include:[/h3]

• [p]Ultimate Fantasy Sandbox. Players can create their own leaders, their own factions, and build a fantasy civilization with its own history and lore.[/p]
• [p]Unified Elemental Experience. Brings together the strategic depth, smart AI, and rich gameplay from Fallen Enchantress, the immersive crafting and quest systems from Sorcerer King, and the dynasty-building, terraforming, and innovative mechanics first introduced in War of Magic.[/p]
• [p]Rich, Dynamic Worlds. Enjoy endless replayability through procedurally generated fantasy worlds filled with lore-rich quests, evolving environments that respond to your magic, unique fantasy civilizations, and bustling cities populated with individually simulated characters.[/p]
• [p]RPG-Infused Unit Design. Customize heroes and armies through an intuitive RPG-style character designer, crafting each unit with their own unique history, stats, equipment, and abilities, growing stronger with experience.[/p]
• [p]Compelling, Short Tactical Combat. See how your designed units and characters fare in battle in highly refined tactical battles that reward strategic thinking, or leverage a sophisticated auto-resolve system powered by advanced AI for streamlined empire management. [/p]
• [p]Deep Quest and Story Integration. Embark on rich, narrative-driven quests seamlessly woven into the empire-building experience, influencing diplomacy, unlocking secrets, and offering meaningful rewards.[/p]
• [p]Modernized UI and Graphics Engine. Explore enhanced visuals powered by DirectX 11, seamless zooming from strategic cloth-map to detailed tactical view.[/p]
• [p]Integrated Modding Tools. A comprehensive built-in modding and map-editing tools, and a fully redesigned user interface optimized for modern PC gaming with Steam workshop integration.[/p]

[p]The original game’s release, Elemental: War of Magic, was limited by the constraints of 32-bit technology, which unfortunately wasn’t able to execute the game’s ambitious mechanics and design in the way Stardock planned. Now with Elemental: Reforged, modern computer hardware is fully capable of delivering the fully realized vision of the series in a package that includes content from all three previous Elemental games.[/p][p][/p][p]As a result of the technical limitations of the day, Elemental was released as War of Magic, Fallen Enchantress and Sorcerer King, each with its own subset of the original design.

The single integrated game, Elemental: Reforged, blends the best of all three games with Dynasties, Unit Design and Crafting by moving to a 64-bit game engine and a modern version of DirectX.[/p][p][/p][h3]Join Early Access:[/h3][p][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p]

[p]I’m sharking around the office.[/p][p]Because today is the day.[/p][p]So far, this project has been handled by Stardockians working in their spare time: the same ones who made the original game 15 years ago. It’s a labor of love for us.[/p][p]What I’m hoping is that we’re not the only ones who love this game and what it could be. That’s what Early Access will tell us. If enough people join in, I can justify bringing on more engineers, artists, writers, and others. We’d love to grow the team and work on this full-time. We’ll soon find out.[/p][p]The art in this game is old enough to drive a car, but the underlying engine is state-of-the-art. We’ve converted everything to 64-bit, HD, and FBX (which probably took 50% of our effort, with another 25% spent on localization, so you’ll see a few broken strings at first).[/p][p][/p][p][/p][h3]Fantasy Games for the New Age[/h3][p]Many of you are probably around my age. I’m 54. I was 35 when I started designing Elemental. I was 20 when I began writing the backstories that became Elemental and Galactic Civilizations. I wanted Elemental to mix Master of Magic, Populous, and Diablo. By release, it was a shadow of that. We fought so hard just to make it work that many features had to go. It was painful.[/p][p]Those systems weren’t deleted, just disabled. They’re still here. All that depth and detail is still there. Each day, more of it returns.[/p][p]This was a game made before every feature was analyzed for “market segments” or “engagement.” Does it make sense that every unit has a backstory you can read? That you can modify and customize each one? Probably not, but the work was done.[/p][p]When this is finished, the sheer amount of content will be staggering, even by today’s standards, and that’s before modders get involved. This time, everything uses standard formats. Music files are MP3s and WAVs. Quests are XML. Screens are INI (dxscreen) files referencing PNGs, and 3D assets are FBX.[/p][p][/p][h3]What to Expect[/h3][p]Stability should be solid. The main bugs come from ongoing localization work. In the original, text was hardcoded in C++ or XML, so moving it out is a manual process. You’ll probably see some missed spots, but they won’t affect gameplay.[/p][p]The fun is there. It’s already more enjoyable than FE or SK. We’ve done significant balance work and restored many War of Magic items.[/p][p]The UI is still a work in progress; some spells, tooltips, and info aren’t displaying correctly yet. That should be fixed in the next few days. Every day brings big improvements.[/p][p]If you like fantasy 4X games, you’ll probably like this.[/p][p][/p][h3]What’s Next[/h3][p]Localization is our top priority. I apologize to our non-English fans that it didn’t make it into Beta 1. Every time we thought we’d found all the strings, we’d discover something like TreasureWnd.cpp with a hardcoded sprintf().[/p][p]After that comes modding. We want Steam Workshop integration ASAP. Once people see how easy it is to share maps, dungeons, techs, recipes, items, monsters, and city improvements, it’ll be clear:[/p]

1. [p]This is awesome.[/p]
2. [p]We were absolutely insane in 2010 to build this.[/p]

[p]Then there’s the Dynasty System: a big deal. Breeding your heirs is a core part of the game.[/p][p]That’s the near term. What happens next depends on how many people join Early Access. Hence the sharking around the office — seeing who I can pull onto Elemental.[/p]

[p][/p][p]Join the AMA Now[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]The developers at Stardock are going live on Discord October 22nd to answer your questions about the creation of Elemental: Reforged.[/p][p][/p][h3]📍 Elemental Discord[/h3][h3]🗓️ October 22, 3PM - 4:30PM EST[/h3]

[p]The Elemental series is, by far, the most expansive that Stardock has ever made; most of it was barely exposed to the player base in our quest to reduce memory. This time, not only can we expose it all, we can enhance it and integrate into Steam Workshop.[/p][p]The dated visuals of Elemental: Reforged do have one major advantage: It makes modding a lot more approachable and easier. Let’s take a look at what we have and what we want to do.[/p][p][/p][p]Every cup, every barrel, every table in this game is placed onto an area which then gets saved out as a tile. Quests, Goodie Huts, City Improvements, etc. all reference a tile. Under the covers, these are just XML files that reference the little 3D assets (now FBX files).[/p][p]Here’s me making a backyard BBQ…poorly.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]I have a huge palette of things I can choose from to put in there, including little people, particle effects, furniture, buildings, you name it.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Here I’ve made a little keep. You can see the pieces at the top.[/p][p]When I’m done, I will have two options:[/p]

1. [p]Save it to disk.[/p]
2. [p]Upload it to Steam Workshop. (We do plan to support other modding platforms later.)[/p]

[p][/p][h2]Using Tiles for Quests, Improvements and Lairs[/h2][p]A tile design on its own doesn’t do much. It needs to be hooked to something:[/p]

1. [p]A quest location.[/p]
2. [p]A City Improvement.[/p]
3. [p]A Goodie Hut / Monster Lair.[/p]
4. [p]etc.[/p]

[p]Let’s start with City Improvements. [/p][p]Right now, it’s quicker for us to just make an improvement in XML. Here’s what the Merchant looks like:[/p]

    TXT_IMPROVEMENTS_MERCHANT_DISPLAYNAME
    TXT_IMPROVEMENTS_MERCHANT_DESCRIPTION
    1
    River
    SwampTerrain
    City
    Category:Land
    Forest
    110
    
      Resource
      Gold
      2
      1
      TXT_PROVIDES_GILDAR_PER_SEASON_2
      1
    
    
      12
      Merchant
    
    Art_Merchant
  

[p]Now, we understand some people might find this intimidating, so either we or someone else (here’s a good “Vibe Coder” thing) will crank out a little front end to make this even easier. [/p][p]The ArtDef at the bottom is where the tile design comes in:[/p]

      
            KingdomStyle
            K_Merchant_01
            K_Construction1x1_01
            Improvement_Merchant.png
            Improvement_Merchant_C.png
            K_Merchant_02_Thumb.png
            
                K_Merchant_02_Thumb.png
            
        

[p]The Tile Design is the file name of the thing you saved, plus you can have some icons and such for it that are just PNGs.[/p][p][/p][p]The map editor was a labor of love for us. We loved maps of Middle Earth, whether it be the Third Age or Beleriand, and you can tell on this map editor that we designed it to make fantasy maps.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Like with the Tile Editor, players will be able to save a map to disk or share it on Steam Workshop.[/p][p]You can create full-on stories with this by putting quest locations and such.[/p][p][/p][h2]Quests[/h2][p]Speaking of quests… They are super easy to make.[/p][p]When you see our quest format, we think you’re going to love it if you’ve ever had to…deal with other systems:[/p]

    TXT_QUESTS_QUEST_FEARFUL_MERCHANT_DISPLAYNAME
    TXT_QUESTS_QUEST_FEARFUL_MERCHANT_DESCRIPTION
    1
    TXT_QUESTS_FEARFUL_MERCHANT_REWARDTEXT
    Armor_WardingKiteShield.png
    Minor
    1
    QuestLocation
    EventLocation
    1
    Rank_MorriganTheMad.png
    QuestLoc_Inn1
    
      
        Unit
        GiveExperience
        6
      
    
    
      
        Resource
        Fame
        10
      
    
    
      0
      1
      TXT_QUESTS_FEARFUL_MERCHANT_OBJECTIVE0_DESC
      
        
          Map
          CreateGoodieHut
          Terrorized Workshop
          GH_Quest_Workshop
          6
        
      
      
        
          Mana_32.png
          TXT_QUESTS_FEARFUL_MERCHANT_OBJECTIVE0_TEXT
          0
        
        Success
        ClearGoodieHut
        GH_Quest_Workshop
        RevealTarget
      
      TXT_QUESTS_FEARFUL_MERCHANT_OBJECTIVE0_CHOICETEXT
      M_Darkling_Shaman_Card.png
      Gfx\\\\Medallions\\\\Medallion_Frame_01.png
      
        TXT_QUESTS_FEARFUL_MERCHANT_CHOICE0_DESC
        1
        
          100
          DarklingShaman
          0
          0
          
            DarklingShaman
            Brunthus the Tenebrous
            5
          
          
            Darkling
            UnitGroupingType_Party
            1
          
          
            Darkling
            UnitGroupingType_Party
            1
          
        
      
      
        TXT_QUESTS_FEARFUL_MERCHANT_CHOICE1_DESC
        0
        TXT_QUESTS_FEARFUL_MERCHANT_CHOICE1_POPUP
      
    
    
      1
      2
      0
      
        
          Mana_32.png
          TXT_QUESTS_FEARFUL_MERCHANT_OBJECTIVE0_TEXT
          0
        
        Success
        BattleFinished
        DarklingShaman
        Victory
      
      TXT_QUESTS_FEARFUL_MERCHANT_OBJECTIVE1_CHOICETEXT
      Crates.png
      Medallion_Frame_01.png
      
        TXT_QUESTS_FEARFUL_MERCHANT_CHOICE2_DESC
        2
        
          
            Resource
            Metal
            50
          
        
      
      
        TXT_QUESTS_FEARFUL_MERCHANT_CHOICE3_DESC
        2
        
          
            GiveItem
            KiteShield_Warding
          
        
      
    
    
      2
      1
    
  

[p]Like with the Improvements, someone, or us, will make some simple friendly front end for this, but making quests is ridiculously simple. BTW, you can hard code your text here…not that we did…cough.[/p][p]It may look long until you realize it’s just a recipe for what happens when and where. All the assets involved are either XML or PNGs.[/p][p]So, want to just make an RPG story to share with your friends or the general public? Here you go.[/p][p] [/p][p]How about particles? For spells, or ambient effects? Yep you can do that here.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]And you can attach these to pretty much anything you want.[/p][p]Here’s how spells are done:[/p]

    TXT_SPELLS_HASTE_DISPLAYNAME
    TXT_SPELLS_HASTE_DESCRIPTION
    TXT_SPELLS_HASTE_FORMATTEDDESCRIPTION
    T_Haste_Painting.png
    T_Haste_Icon.png
    1
    0
    Unit
    UnitEnchantment
    Tactical
    Defensive
    Buff
    FriendlyUnit
    Haste_Adept
    
      AbilityBonusOption
      Air1
    
    
      Mana
      5
    
    
      Unit
      AdjustUnitStat
      UnitStat_CombatSpeed
      1
      Hasted
      -1
      E_Celerity_Particle
      
        \[UnitOwner_GetNumAirShards]
      
      
        \[Calc] + 5
      
      
        \[Calc] + 5
      
    
    
      255
      
        IsTargetWorthy
        
          \[Unit_GetHPCurrent]
        
        
          \[Calc] > 10
        
      
    
    Spell_Haste_01
    Spell_Haste_02
  

[p]This is the Haste Spell.[/p][p]See the E_Celerity_Particle?[/p][p]That’s just the name of the saved file: i.e,. E_Celerity_Particle.xml. I kid you not. You just make your effect, save it to disk (or download it from Steam) and refer to the file. As long as it’s in the “data” directory it’ll find it (have you noticed you don’t have to put in file paths?).[/p][p][/p][p]This is an area of immense potential (now). Because Reforged supports FBX, there’s nothing stopping 3D artists from making their own unique races (and probably showing us up), but you can also make your own civilization.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]So, while we don’t intend to have Elves, Dwarves, Orcs and so forth in, modders will be able to do some crazy things.[/p][p][/p][h2]The Power Of 64-Bit[/h2][p]In the original War of Magic and Fallen Enchantress, we had these tools, but we didn’t dare look at them funny because we’d get out of memory errors if we added say too many chairs to a scene or made a map with one too many quests. It was extremely painful and frustrating. By today’s standards, this game has pretty small memory requirements, but in 2010, it was brushing up against the 2GB limit.[/p][p]My friend and, back in 2010, competitor, Dan Baker was dealing with this as the lead graphics engineer on Civilization V, which shipped a month later. They were pulling every trick they could to make Civilization V run on 32-bit machines without crashing. The change to 64-bit was, no pun intended, game changing, and now, thanks to it, you will soon have the ability to build your own fantasy worlds.[/p]