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.

“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.”

“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.”

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.

“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.”

• Ultimate Fantasy Sandbox. Players can create their own leaders, their own factions, and build a fantasy civilization with its own history and lore.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• Modernized UI and Graphics Engine. Explore enhanced visuals powered by DirectX 11, seamless zooming from strategic cloth-map to detailed tactical view.

• 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.

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.

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.

• Ultimate Fantasy Sandbox. Players can create their own leaders, their own factions, and build a fantasy civilization with its own history and lore.
  
• 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.
  
• 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.
  
• 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.
  
• 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.
  
• 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.
  
• Modernized UI and Graphics Engine. Explore enhanced visuals powered by DirectX 11, seamless zooming from strategic cloth-map to detailed tactical view.
  
• 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.

Stardock Entertainment announced today Elemental: Reforged, a definitive re-imagining of the ambitious fantasy 4X strategy series Elemental. Integrating the strongest elements from Elemental: War of Magic, Fallen Enchantress, and Sorcerer King, Elemental: Reforged finally brings to life the comprehensive vision originally set out nearly two decades ago.

First conceived in 2008 following Stardock’s successes with Galactic Civilizations II and Sins of a Solar Empire, Elemental was planned as the ultimate fantasy civilization strategy experience. Technical constraints at the time, particularly 32-bit memory limitations, prevented the full realization of that ambitious design. The result was Elemental: War of Magic (2010), a highly ambitious game whose innovative concepts were overshadowed by significant technical issues at launch.

Stardock learned from these challenges, releasing the acclaimed Elemental: Fallen Enchantress and later the crafting-focused Sorcerer King. However, neither fully captured the original comprehensive vision due to technology constraints. Now, with a modernized 64-bit engine, Elemental: Reforged is able to deliver on the original vision for Elemental.

Wishlist Now[store.steampowered.com]

“With Elemental: Reforged, we’re finally able to deliver the original design we wanted,” said Brad Wardell, CEO of Stardock Entertainment and lead designer of the original Elemental game. “As we developed Elemental, we realized that the design wouldn’t fit in a 32-bit game and pared it down to into Elemental: War of Magic, which still had challenges fitting in 32-bit memory space. So then we made Elemental: Fallen Enchantress, which did much better but was still a shadow of what we had designed. Then we made Elemental: Sorcerer King where we focused on the crafting and quest elements of the original design. Now, thanks to remastering the engine to 64-bit, we can actually make the full game we originally envisioned in 2008.”

Elemental: Reforged will feature elements and mechanics from each of the previously released 32-bit games, along with entirely new features, in a new 64-bit engine with enhanced visuals.

“What makes Elemental unique is that it’s a strategy game in an RPG world,” said Wardell. “The world really is your sandbox.  You can create your own character and even your own faction to bring into this world.”

Elemental: Reforged Highlights:

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• Compelling 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. 

• 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.

• Modernized UI and Graphics Engine. Explore enhanced visuals powered by DirectX 11, seamless zooming from strategic cloth-map to detailed tactical view.

• 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.

Elemental: Reforged now fully realizes Stardock’s original vision, bringing a richly immersive fantasy strategy experience to fans and newcomers alike.

Wishlist Now[store.steampowered.com]

• Default "zoom out" level before moving to the cloth map has been increased.
  
• Units now use the unit display name instead of the generic display name. This doesn't change any gameplay, but it makes it a lot easier for modding.
  
• World generation is set up to allow more fertile tiles to be free of bandits, which makes expansion a little easier.
  
• Final battles for Priestess, Tinkerer, Tyrant, Undead, and Wizard are now substantially more lethal.

• Mounted Scout (Commander)
  
• Friendly Shrill (Guardian)
  
• Spearman (Commander)
  
• Mystic (Priestess)
  
• Scoutling (Tyrant)
  
• Clockwork Soldier (Tinkerer)

• Neutrals more intelligent
  
• Minor adjustment to the Ascendancy spell cost
  
• Optimized when ZOC calculator gets called to improve performance.
  
• Reduced the number of default monster lairs (see elementaldefs.xml to mod)
  
• Reduced distance that the monsters and ruffians will look for something to kill to improve performance.
  
• The Main Game Window now has an"Ascension" button near the ascension orb that functions as shortcut to cast the Spell of Ascension.
  
• Fix for terrain morphing causing that was causing tears in the world.
  
• Fixed a problem that would sometimes cause a crash on startup