Elemental: Reforged News

[h2]Beta 3C "The Menagerie Update" for Elemental: Reforged is now available[/h2][p]View the full changelog[/p][p][/p][h3]New and Upgraded Monster Lairs[/h3][p]Monster lairs now feature greater variety with new creature types including Ghouls, Bone Hounds, Feral Slaves, Embers, Prowlers, and Herglings. Lairs also drop more loot, with specific monster types tending to drop specific types of rewards and crafting ingredients. Guardian monsters will no longer wander away from their lairs.[/p][p][/p][h3]New Tutorials[/h3][p]Four new step-by-step tutorials have been added covering terrain and movement, items and equipment, city building, and research and economy.[/p][p][/p][h3]Gameplay and Balance[/h3][p]Monster defense and combat speed has been rebalanced across all levels. City economy has been adjusted with reduced food and gold multipliers, lowered food per grain bonuses, and adjusted city hub gold output. The AI is now more likely to research companies to field larger armies, and elemental attacks now correctly benefit from generic attack boost traits.[/p][p][/p][h3]Campaign Fixes[/h3][p]Cities no longer lose food and resources when leveling up, and clearing army bases now properly rewards loot, including rings, amulets, belts, and rare crafting ingredients from Krax and Wraith bases.[/p][p] [/p][p]Thank you to everyone playing and sharing feedback during Early Access, it's shaping the game heading into launch. Elemental: Reforged officially releases on March 17. [/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p]

[h2]New campaign, new sovereigns, smarter AI, and faster performance land in Elemental: Reforged's latest update[/h2][p]View the full changelog[/p][p][/p][p]The Beta 3b update for Elemental: Reforged is now available. Here's what's new.[/p][h3]The Prelude Campaign[/h3][p]The final campaign, Prelude, is now playable. This joins the existing Fallen Enchantress and Legendary Heroes campaigns, rounding out the campaign lineup ahead of launch.[/p][p][/p][h3]New Sovereigns[/h3][p]Lord Markinn and Warlord Verga are now selectable sovereigns. You can also edit, copy, and delete your custom sovereigns and factions directly from the selection screen.[/p][p][/p][h3]AI That Puts Up a Fight[/h3][p]The AI has received a significant pass. It now defends the areas around its cities, correctly respects Zone of Control in tactical battles, and properly pays essence to found cities instead of spamming them. Enemy lair upgrade speed now scales with difficulty -- slower on Novice, faster on Insane.[/p][p][/p][h3]Performance Improvements[/h3][p]Loading into games and loading saves is noticeably faster. City menus open quicker, and end-of-turn processing takes less time with reduced CPU usage during AI turns.[/p][p] [/p][h3]Elemental: Reforged officially launches on March 17![/h3][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p]

[h2]Stardock Announces March 17 Release Date for Elemental: Reforged[/h2][h3]The remastered fantasy 4X strategy RPG exits Early Access with three campaigns, a dynasty system, deep crafting, and hundreds of new quests, characters, and dungeons[/h3][p][/p][p]Wishlist or Join Early Access[/p][p][/p][p]Stardock Entertainment today announced that Elemental: Reforged, the remastered and expanded fantasy 4X strategy RPG, will leave Early Access and launch on March 17, 2026 on Steam with a launch discount. [/p][p][/p][p]Elemental: Reforged is a turn-based strategy game set in an RPG world. Players create their own sovereign, found a civilization, explore a procedurally generated fantasy world, and compete for control of powerful magical shards. Every unit in the game is a unique individual with their own name, stats, equipment, and history. Players can research technology, learn spells, send heroes on quests, craft magical items, and wage war or forge alliances with rival civilizations.[/p][p][/p][p]"What makes Elemental unique is that it's a strategy game in an RPG world. The world really is your sandbox. You create your own character, fantasy civilization and bring them into a vast world that is different each game." said Brad Wardell, CEO of Stardock.[/p][p][/p][p]The first Elemental game, Elemental: War of Magic, released in 2010 featured an ambitious design that envisioned a world in which every character was unique and existed within a living world of varied civilizations competing for domination. Despite praise of its innovative features, the game struggled under the limitations of 32-bit hardware. Two years later, Stardock released a sequel, Elemental: Fallen Enchantress, which streamlined the feature set to fit better in 32-bit memory space. A spin-off game, Elemental: Sorcerer King, was developed that focused heavily on the features that were removed from the original Elemental such as crafting, quests and character progression. Now, Elemental: Reforged takes a new 64-bit and 3D engine, a remastered set of visuals, features and content of all three games, and collects them all into a brand new package that introduces new content to fully deliver the original vision of Elemental, 16 years after the first game’s release.[/p][p][/p][h3]Elemental: Reforged Key Features:[/h3]

• [p]A world of unique characters. Players can design their own units with desired visual customization and attributes, recruit champions, equip gear and watch them develop over the course of a game.[/p]
• [p]Three Story-Driven Campaigns. The original Elemental trilogy’s campaigns are all included: Prelude, The Fallen Enchantress, and The Legendary Heroes, each exploring an era in the history of this world and its ultimate destiny.[/p]
• [p]Hereditary Dynasties. Sovereign rulers can marry, have children, and pass down traits and visual characteristics across generations.[/p]
• [p]Deep Crafting System. Create unique weapons, armor, enchantments, and magical artifacts to equip your armies.[/p]
• [p]Hundreds of New Quests, Characters, and Dungeons. Never-before-seen content, including new storylines, encounters, and explorable locations that expand the world far beyond the original games.[/p]
• [p]10 Distinct Civilizations. Each with unique traits, playstyles, and visual identities.[/p]
• [p]World Terraforming. Reshape the land itself using shards of elemental magic.[/p]
• [p]Tactical Combat. Turn-based battles with intelligent, non-cheating AI.[/p]
• [p]Full Modding Suite with Steam Workshop. Create and share custom maps, scenarios, and total conversions.[/p]

[p] [/p][h3]Elemental: Reforged will release on March 17, 2026 with a launch discount[/h3][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p] [/p]

[p]As we start to near the finish line, our focus has moved to bug fixing, AI updates and balance. This is a delicate thing to get right. It isn’t as exciting or flashy as the graphics update but it is what will matter in the long run.[/p][p]Though, mark my words, there will still be “that guy” who will say the remaster didn’t update the graphics. Below is Janisk (before and after).[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Campaign before and after:[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]And of course the new portraits:[/p][p][/p][p]But gameplay is what matters and that’s where we’ve done the most work on this game. Ranged weapons affected by distance, AI plays to win, crafting, dynasties, etc. But all of this has to be balanced. Having monster lairs upgrade over the course of the game is all well and good until you find yourself having a Balrog as a neighbor.[/p][p]So that’s where we’re at. Balancing, bug fixing and AI![/p]

[h2]Beta 3 brings a substantial visual overhaul, expanded campaign content, and reworked AI[/h2][p]View the Changelog | Join Early Access[/p][p][/p][h3]Visual Overhaul[/h3][p]The most immediately noticeable change is the updated character models. We've left the PlayStation 1 era behind with new models that apply retroactively to existing characters. We may still need to upscale some clothing textures, but the core visual upgrade is now in place.[/p][p][/p][h3]Campaign Updates[/h3][p]Beta 3 includes two campaigns: Fallen Enchantress and Legendary Heroes. We've not only ported this classic content but expanded upon it as well. The War of Magic campaign is coming soon and will be ready for our full release.[/p][p][/p][h3]AI and Balance Changes[/h3][p]The AI has received significant attention in this update. The original AI was designed to "lose well", throttling its own performance to ensure players could win while facing some early-game challenge. This approach has been reworked, with restrictions removed that previously prevented AI players from pursuing quests and exploration if the human player appeared to be struggling. We'll be lowering the default difficulty setting to account for these changes.[/p][p][/p][h3]Bug Fixes and What's Next[/h3][p]Beta 3 also includes extensive bug fixes, which occupied much of our recent development time. Following this beta, we're shifting focus toward release, with plans for a post-launch roadmap based on player feedback.[/p][p][/p][p]Thank you for your continued support, your enthusiasm is what drives us.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p]