E3 '07: Disciples III Impressions - First Look
We take a look at the third game in the Disciples turn-based fantasy strategy series.
SANTA MONICA, Calif.--One of the many games being shown at this year's E3 is Disciples III, the third game in the turn-based strategy series. Unlike previous games in the series, Disciples III will be a fully 3D game with polygonal graphics to represent its huge monsters and warriors onscreen, though a representative from Akella, the game's developer, assured us that the game won't have particularly demanding system requirements.
Disciples III will feature more than 150 different "characters"--the war heroes, monsters, ghosts, and other beasties that can make up a war party in the game, and like in the previous games, the size of your war party will depend on your leader character's leadership skill. Apparently, some monsters in the game, such as dragons, will be absolutely huge, and will take up to 12 squares on the game's combat map, which has been retouched as a grid-based map divided up into two halves--yours and your opponents'.
We had a chance to see only the demonic legions of the damned faction in action, and they're as scaly and red-skinned as ever. However, the sequel will apparently ship with only three playable factions out of the box: the legions, the human empire, and the noble elves. Apparently, subsequent expansion packs will add additional races at a rate of one race per expansion--with any luck, we'll see the return of the original Disciples factions of the dwarven mountain clans and the undead horde.
The version of the game we saw was an extremely early one, so there was very little in the way of content to see. We did have a chance to see some parts of the overland map, which is now fully 3D, but is still populated by static monster spawns, various structures your parties can visit (or ransack), and still consists of different terrain types, which can be still converted to your faction's land type by using a rod-placing unit. We also had a chance to see the legions' home town, which was essentially a gigantic floating rock formation suspended above rivers of red molten lava. Both the overland view and the town view seem strikingly reminiscent of Heroes of Might and Magic V, though the towns in Disciples will have the familiar interface options to upgrade various portions of your stronghold to strengthen the specific unit types you choose; for instance, like in the previous games, you can choose to upgrade your melee units' barracks, which lets your basic melee units develop into a stronger character class once they gain experience levels. Upgrade options for melee, archery, magic, and miscellaneous classes at strongholds all appear to be intact.
Disciples III is currently being developed as a joint venture between Canadian publisher Strategy First, which is providing much of the game design, and Russian developer Akella, which is providing most of the production work. The game is scheduled for release in the second quarter of 2008.
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