Elemental: Reforged News

[p]The team working on Elemental: Reforged is essentially the same team (plus some new faces) that worked on Elemental: War of Magic 16 years ago in 2009. Back then, my colleagues were mostly associate-level developers and artists, right out of college. Today, of course, they’re leads and normally distributed amongst various projects. It’s unusual for a project of this size to have multiple senior or lead developers on it, but we all desired the opportunity to show what we wanted to do with the game, but couldn’t, in 2010.[/p][p]One thing that has changed significantly from 2010 is the concept of Early Access. We previously used Early Access to get player feedback on design, balance, or other issues so that the final game was much more polished. While Early Access was a great tool from 2010 to 2015, but today, not so much.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][h2]Early Access should not be a glorified demo[/h2][p]We used Early Access heavily from 2010 to 2015 to tune balance and test design. It was never about outsourcing QA to the community as internal QA discovers about 90% of the actual bugs that are addressed. What QA can’t decide is whether a spell should deal +5 or +6 fire damage, which is where player feedback matters. Today, though, Early Access is often treated as a marketing beat. Players have certain expectations for Early Access and review the game accordingly, and if the game is using Early Access as intended (a Beta), that can wreck the game’s release chances.[/p][p][/p][h2]Why the caution?[/h2][p]Reforged is not just Fallen Enchantress in 64-bit with new visuals. It plays a lot like a new game and Early Access would let us test real changes. For example, removing free pop-up Champions in favor of recruiting them from the world. Good idea? Maybe. Maybe not. That’s where community feedback comes in. Feedback meaning a post of ideas on a forum or Discord, not a negative Steam review to punish us for trying out a new idea.[/p][p][/p][h2]Roadmap[/h2][p]If we do Early Access, here’s what it would look like:[/p][p]After that, we would see what the sentiment on the game is and we would be very transparent on how things are going. Games like Age of Wonders 4 have sold something like a million copies. The first Endless Legends did even better. So obviously, there is a market for fantasy strategy games and we’re happy to increase scope and do as much as players want provided there is demand. That’ll be up to you guys.[/p][p][/p][h2]The Proposal[/h2][p]So, there’s a post: Elemental Early Access? Yay or Nay :: Elemental: Reforged General Discussions. We want to hear from you on this with the hope that if we do Early Access that enough of the player base will understand that this is a BETA and not some demo.[/p][p][/p][p]Here’s an example:[/p][p][/p][p]This UI and character needs more stats:[/p]

1. [p]Spell Mastery[/p]
2. [p]Resistances (merge Spell Resist into a bunch of other resistances and have a tooltip),[/p]
3. [p]Critical Hit %[/p]

[p]The blank area under the portrait needs to have additional information like race and specialization. That is what we are looking for in an Early Access.[/p][p]And as a community, we will conclude when the game is “done” (Because a lot of people, like me, won’t play early access games) and then we can talk about what comes next. Let us know what you think![/p]

[p]The general philosophy for the Elemental games is that they are strategy games in RPG worlds, and part of this means that units could be designed and equipped like you would in an RPG. The one thing we couldn’t do for War of Magic or Fallen Enchantress was have crafting. We just couldn’t fit it. In Sorcerer King, however, we did add it, but we had to remove other things to make it fit. In a 64-bit world, we can have our figurative cake and eat it too.[/p][p][/p][h2]Recipes and Ingredients[/h2][p]Throughout the course of the game, players will acquire recipes for various items, weapons, armor, and potions, with some coming from the tech tree and others from quests and loot. These recipes require ingredients, some of which can be produced in your cities, while others must be found or harvested from the land itself through the use of magic.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Some ingredients can only be found in very remote locations around the world at great risk and danger, but can then be used to create items of significant power.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]One major change from Fallen Enchantress is a global inventory system. Players can equip their champions and other units with equipment that they’ve found and crafted.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Players simply need to go to their unit roster and select the items they want to equip on that unit to build them up.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]From a strategic point of view, it provides an additional pathway for players. Receive items through quests and monster killing, harvest resources and craft them at home, or acquire them by conquering other civilizations. Or, of course, some combination of the above.[/p]

[p]We like sandbox games. We are not interested in telling you a story. We are interested in you creating your own stories through gameplay, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t have lore - lore that has published books about them and decades of development in them. Today, I want to share a little bit of the backstory for Elemental. Note: minor spoilers mentioned.[/p][p][/p][h2]In the Beginning[/h2][p]There were the Mithrilar. These were extremely powerful guardians with no native shape or substance. Placed in the universe to oversee the creation and guarding of the Telananth, a massive crystalline structure with an unknown purpose.[/p][p]However, there was a Mithrilar that came from somewhere else. Damaged and different, he had a native shape and substance, but he had no name and, at first, no memory. From him, the Mithrilar took on their own shapes and substances.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]In the course of time and events, the Mithrilar, now branded as “Draginol”, meddled with the Telananth and was gravely wounded in a blast that embedded him deep in the world.[/p][p]Unconscious and wounded, some of his essence seeped into the world, changing the evolutionary path of this world. This essence could be shaped and used by various types of beings.[/p][p]This power attracted other beings to this world, known by the natives as “Titans”. This Cataclysm devasted the world killing nearly all life.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]The cataclysm emptied the world of many of its people and animals. Many escaped and became exiles on other worlds. Those that remained were left with the relics of the Titans, including the Elemental shards (from which the world was ultimately named after) who had gathered the essence and locked it away. Great structures and monuments were built around these shards.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Some rare mortals, known as Channelers, could harness the power of these shards that contained the traces of lost essence of the Draginol Mithrilar. Different Channelers had different ambitions and intentions on using that power. Some sought conquest, some sought to heal the world, and Elemental: Reforged is their story. Your story to create through your decisions.[/p][p][/p][p]Elemental: Reforged is about the player being one of those rare Channelers and what they choose to do with that power.[/p]

[h2]Let's Talk About 2010[/h2][p]I'm going to be straight with you - Elemental: War of Magic didn't look good in 2010, and Elemental: Fallen Enchantress didn’t really improve on that. Time has not been kind to it.[/p][p]The Elemental games were our first non-space game at Stardock. We'd been making Galactic Civilizations and publishing Sins of a Solar Empire, and we thought "how hard could it be to make a fantasy game?" Turns out, pretty hard. Terrain. Animation. Magic. [/p][p]The biggest challenge wasn't what you might think. It wasn't the terrain or the cities or even the spell effects. It was the units. We wanted our units to be unique and customizable by players. Many new character artists have come in and thought it easy to just make the characters and animations look better, but not so fast. There are no characters in this game, they only look like characters. [/p][p]What we think of as characters in the game are actually just heads, bodies, legs, arms and attachment points put together. They are, if you have ever played GalCiv, a fancier version of the ship designer. They are GalCiv ships that look like people.[/p][p][/p][h2]The Modular Unit System[/h2][p]Most strategy games cheat here. They have a "swordsman" unit that's one complete 3D model. Maybe they swap textures for different factions. Simple, clean, looks good.[/p][p]We couldn't do that. In Elemental, when you equip a champion with a sword, that specific sword needs to appear. When you give them plate armor, you need to see that exact armor. Design a custom unit with leather armor and a spear? Every single soldier in that unit type needs to show those exact items.[/p][p]So instead of one model, each unit is actually built from pieces:[/p]

• [p]Separate head[/p]
• [p]Separate torso[/p]
• [p]Individual arms[/p]
• [p]Individual legs[/p]
• [p]Every weapon is its own model[/p]
• [p]Every piece of armor is separate[/p]
• [p]Shields, cloaks, accessories - all separate[/p]

[p]Each piece needs attachment points that work with every other piece. A sword needs to fit in any hand. A helmet needs to fit on any head. Armor needs to work whether the unit is human-sized or ogre-sized.[/p][p][/p][h2]Why It Looked Bad[/h2][p]Here's the killer - in 2010, we were shipping a 32-bit game on DirectX 9. So, we had to make endless tough decisions on how to make this work and many of them came at the expense of the visuals. The textures and model “pieces” had to be very simple in order to keep the number of draw calls under control. We batched draw calls aggressively, but there is a cost.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][h2]Remastering the Visuals[/h2][p]If you haven’t checked out Endless Legend II, you should. It’s gorgeous. The Amplitude team really knows art and Endless Legend II, with their crafty and, dare I say, handsome lead, Derek, is working to find the right balance between visuals and gameplay. Obviously, we can’t remaster the game to that level of fidelity and our gameplay is very different (we’re more of an fantasy civ game in an RPG world), but the reality is, we have to improve the game’s looks to not outright turn people off.[/p][p]So the plan is as follows:[/p]

• [p]Remake the heads. The character heads in this game were Nintendo 64 level in detail, which was fine, if you never saw them close up, but you do and it hurts. It hurts so much. So, we’re going to have to bite the bullet and do that.[/p]
• [p]Art Direction. In 2010, we were in the GalCiv / Sins of a Solar Empire mindset of units needing to pop, so contrasts were dialed up to 11 and there’s so much garish coloring in the game. We’re addressing that.[/p]
• [p]Textures. Now, this part is easier, because we authored our assets at pretty high resolution so that we just have to update.[/p]

[h2]The Challenge[/h2][p]We have to port everything from the Havok .hkb files of 2009 to FBX so that we can use modern art tools, and that is proving very challenging and expensive.[/p][p]This game is a labor of love for us, but we have to keep the costs under control. Therefore, we have to be very careful about what we do on this. If there’s enough interest after release, we can look at making a true sequel in the future, but the first step is to see how people like Reforged first.[/p][p][/p][h2]When can you see it?[/h2][p]We hope to have some screenshots of our progress for you soon. We will also be polling to find out if people want an early access of the game with would help us gauge the real level of interest in this. Having played quite a bit of the Endless Legend II demo (which I highly recommend) and as a fan of Age of Wonders 4, I can honestly say that this game definitely has its own spot in the fantasy strategy genre that is very distinct for those who want to play a sandbox fantasy civilization style game. Ultimately, you guys will decide where things go. Let us know what you think.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p]

[p]By Brad Wardell[/p][p][/p][h2]Localization: How to double your market size[/h2][p]Here's a business truth that haunts game developers: English speakers represent only 40% of the strategy 4X gaming market. The other 60%? They're playing games in German, Chinese, French, Spanish, Polish, Russian, and so many others.[/p][p]For 15 years, Elemental was locked out of that 60%. That was because back in 2008, when we were developing the game, we were thinking mostly retail and that meant North America.[/p][p]Now, in 2025, when looking at remastering Elemental and combining FE, SK, and WOM into a single integrated game, we need to reach that other 60%. This means revisiting the way we do strings.[/p][p] [/p][h2]BEFORE: Hard-coded strings everywhere[/h2][h3]Problem 1: Hardcoded Strings in XML Data Files[/h3][p]Every piece of game text was baked directly into the data files:[/p][p][/p][p]Want to translate this to German? You'd need to maintain completely separate XML files for every language. Change Donya's abilities? Update it in 7 different places. Don’t forget, this means breaking every mod.[/p][p][/p][h3]Problem 2: Printf-Style Formatting That Crashes and Burns[/h3][p]At the same time, our UI strings used printf-style formatting:[/p][p][/p][p]The problems with this approach:[/p]

• [p]Type mismatches cause crashes: Pass a string where it expects a number? Crash.[/p]
• [p]Translation nightmare: German might need "für %d Schaden greift %s %s an" (completely different order)[/p]
• [p]Zero context for translators: What's the first %s? The second %s? Who knows![/p]

[p] [/p][h2]Why We Stopped After Sorcerer King[/h2][p]We released:[/p]

• [p]Elemental: War of Magic (2010) - English only[/p]
• [p]Fallen Enchantress (2012) - English only[/p]
• [p]Sorcerer King (2014) - English only[/p]

[p]Then we stopped. We had no choice. First, because these were 32-bit games and we could never fit the full game design into a single game because each one was a different aspect. Secondly, it became an ever increasing problem to have an “English only” game.[/p][p] [/p][h2]The 2025 Reforging: Fixing Everything[/h2][p]When we decided to create Elemental: Reforged, we knew this had to be fixed, but the scope was staggering:[/p][h3]The Archaeological Dig: What We Found[/h3]

• [p]12,000+ hardcoded strings in XML files[/p]
• [p]514 FormatSTLString calls with printf formatting[/p]
• [p]467 broken parameter replacements (missing assignments)[/p]
• [p]71 C++ files with string handling code[/p]
• [p]3 competing string systems used simultaneously[/p]

[p]Some files were museums of bad practices:[/p]

• [p]Unit.cpp: 69 broken parameter replacements[/p]
• [p]BattleEngine.cpp: All three systems in the same function[/p]
• [p]ElementalUI.cpp: Calls to put %d and %s together for tooltips.[/p]

[p][/p][h3]Step 1: Extract Everything from XML[/h3][p]Before (2010):[/p][p][/p][p]After (2025):[/p][p][/p][p]With the actual text in Strings.xml:[/p][p][/p][p][/p][h3]Step 2: Replace Printf with Named Parameters[/h3][p]Before (2010):[/p][p][/p][p]After (2025):[/p][p][/p][p] [/p][h2]The Business Impact: Finally Reaching the Other 60%[/h2][p]With these fixes complete:[/p][p]✅ Chinese localization: Now possible (1.4 billion potential players)
✅ Japanese localization: Now possible (125 million potential players)
✅ Korean localization: Now possible (75 million potential players)
✅ European languages: Germany and France and Poland are huge markets!
✅ Modding support: Community translations become feasible and modding is much more robust.[/p][p] [/p][h2]The Bottom Line[/h2][p]Fixing this for Elemental: Reforged wasn't just about clean code - it was about bringing Elemental to a worldwide audience.[/p][p]Sometimes the most important feature is invisible, but it was worth it.[/p][p]Now, finally, Elemental is for everyone.[/p]