Nordic Games offers the first screenshots from Spellforce 3 as well as the first concrete details about the new installment in the series since it was first revealed 18 months ago. At that time they talked about returning the series to its roots, and now they discuss what that means, and how the game will combine RPG and RTS elements. Here's word:

Heroes and Quests
Similar to its successful predecessors, players create their hero from scratch and can then develop the hero’s skills during the campaign, complete quests, explore the game world and join forces with up to three characters to form a group of heroes.

Organic Growth
The map in SpellForce 3 is divided into different sectors. The player’s base won’t grow arbitrarily, but always organically. Concretely, this means that the player can only conquer sectors, which are connected to the base or other, already conquered, sectors. This is important, because there is no “Global Economy”, but the distribution of resources will happen mechanically (resources are being transported via carts). The player can decide which raw materials he wants to collect, distribute and export in each sector and must therefore carefully plan where to build the sectors.

Sector Management
If, for example, the player defeats all the enemies in a particular sector and the bandit camp is captured, he can establish an outpost in this area. The player can then construct buildings in the sectors, exploit raw materials (wood, stone, food, etc.), transport goods and produce resources to then recruit new fighting units. Each outpost has a set number of workers who can be hired, so a core element of the game is to balance the sector economy and manage the sector to ensure the most efficient deployment of the available workers.

Hybrid Gameplay
We don’t want to ignore the RPG component and want players to have the best gaming experience possible with SpellForce 3, so the micro management is not as hectic and fast-paced as in many other RTS games. Players can therefore enjoy both gameplay genres (RTS and RPG) in equal measure.

SpellForce 3 Features

• RTS/RPG Mix: Unique gameplay combining RTS and Top-Down RPG genres
  • RTS: the RTS part focuses on macromanagement (overall strategy, building a base/economy, conquering of zones, managing large groups of units)
  • RPG: the RPG part puts emphasis on micromanaging the party of heroes (skills of ALL heroes of the party have assigned keyboard bindings) in battles
• Create & Customize: Assemble your party of heroes and choose between numerous combinations of different skill builds
• Strengthen and Command Your Army: Prepare your troops and fight the mother of all battles. Moreover, players can utilize a wide array of strategic choices (like e.g. terrain, troop formations, visibility, scouting etc.) that would make Sun Tzu proud
• Epic Storyline: Unravel a deep and sophisticated story, eventually leading up to the events that cause the world-changing convocation ritual
• Rich Universe & Lore: Explore the world Eo and discover intrigues, secrets and a lot of loot for your hero
• Extensive Single-Player Campaign: 30+ hours, even more when you manage to discover all the things Grimlore put in the world
• Multiplayer: Strong multiplayer component with various modes - Play cooperatively or in versus battles