SpellForce 3 is a 2017 video game developed by Grimlore Games and published by THQ Nordic. It was released for Microsoft Windows on 7 December 2017. SpellForce 3 is the third full and the ninth overall release in the SpellForce video game series. It is the first entry in the series since 2014's SpellForce 2: Demons of the Past. The plot serves as a prequel to the first game (SpellForce: The Order of Dawn), depicting events that lead to the creation of The Circle, the group of mages whose actions were the basis for The Order of Dawn.
The game combines role-playing and real-time strategy elements like previous games in the series. Players control a mage called Tahar and a group of supporting characters with different backstories and abilities. Like many role-playing games, characters can equip various items such as armor, weapons and jewelry that influence the character's abilities and traits. Many maps allow players to construct buildings and gather resources to create additional units with fixed abilities. The game features an extensive campaign that can be played by a single player or two players. It also includes a skirmish mode allowing players to battle against the AI or other players, independently of the campaign.
Two standalone expansions were released for SpellForce 3, Soul Harvest (2018) and Fallen God (2020), as well as a free multiplayer-only version called SpellForce 3: Versus. On 6 December 2021, an upgraded version of the original, SpellForce 3 Reforced was released for Microsoft Windows, and was released for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S on 7 June 2022.
Gameplay SpellForce 3 is a role-playing video game with real-time strategy game elements. Usually, players control a character they created and up to three companions, each with different abilities. Like many role-playing games, these characters can be customized by equipping them with different items such as weapons, armor and jewelry which influence their various abilities and effectiveness in battle. Some maps require players to construct a base of operations and specialized buildings to gather resources and recruit units to defeat larger groups of enemies or fulfill certain tasks.
The game features a story-driven campaign and a skirmish mode which allows players to fight battles on the game's maps without previously playing through the campaign mode. Both modes can be played alone or with other players online. In skirmish mode, players can share responsibilities of managing a single race with others.
Players can create their own character in campaign mode, customizing appearance and gender. They can also choose three different skill trees, depending on the chosen fighting style. All player-created characters have a fourth skill tree called "Leadership" which contains skills related to the real-time strategy parts of the game. Each character has five attributes (strength, dexterity, intelligence, willpower and constitution) which influence what weapons, armor and items they can use as well their health, focus, damage, block and critical strike chances. During the campaign, a number of other characters (companions) can be recruited . All characters gain experience points by killing enemies and completing quests, regardless of whether they were involved in combat or the quest. Experience points allow players to unlock improvements for their character and companions, such as learning new skills, improving attributes and unlocking advanced equipment.
The game uses an isometric perspective that players can rotate to display the environment. Depending on the map, players control a single character or a group. The mouse, along with hotkeys, can be used for actions such as selecting enemies to attack or skills to use. Alternatively, selecting an enemy and holding a certain key will slow down the game and shows a wheel of possible skills to use on the unit. The skill-wheel was added for the first time in the SpellForce series in SpellForce 3 and allows players to quickly select and perform an action.
Both the main character and companions have magical talents ("skills") which come in three forms: spells, auras and passive. Spells must be activated and sometimes targeted. They allow players to focus a positive or negative effect, e.g. healing a group of friendly units or damaging a certain enemy. Auras have a positive effect on nearby friendly units or a negative effect on nearby enemy units. Passive skills improve a character's abilities directly, such as increasing damage dealt with a certain weapon or heightened health regeneration. Skills are grouped into "skill trees", requiring players to unlock certain skills first before others. All skills can be upgraded once or twice, with the base skill of each tree having eight possible upgrades. Each companion has a special powerful skill that can only be unlocked by completing a side quest. Spells and auras must be "equipped" before they can be used in battle. Players are limited to three spells and/or auras, and must strategically choose which spells or auras to equip. Skills are depicted as pictograms below each character's portrait in the upper left corner of the screen and can be accessed by clicking on them. The game displays potions and equipped items in a slot next to the skills slot.
The game features a World Map from which players can travel to certain locations. When entering a map, the player can choose which companions to accompany them, which influences some quests. Up to three companions can be selected, although sometimes a map requires a certain companion to play. On each map, several "Godstones" allow the player's units to teleport and to revive the player character and companions.
Maps that allow the player to control an army are separated into sectors. The main character or a companion are required to create outposts to expand their territory. This concept was made popular in Z. Resources are limited in each sector and transported by automatic horse carriages between several sectors. The carriages can be attacked by enemies. Unlike in most real-time strategy games, workers are limited in each sector and cannot be controlled directly; instead, they are assigned to a building. Controlled sectors must be next to each other, otherwise resources will not be shared. Because the number of workers is limited for each sector and the number and level of outposts also determines the number of units the player can make, expansion is required to build, harvest resources and create more units. All army units have strengths and weaknesses, meaning they are stronger when fighting certain enemies and more susceptible to damage from others.
Players can choose a race to control when entering a map with real-time strategy elements. There are three races to choose from: elves, humans and orcs, down from six in the first game and nine (bundled in three factions) in the second game. Elves favor defense, including strong buildings and outposts that can defend themselves. Orcs favor fast expansion and brute force. Humans favor defense and offense equally. Advanced units and buildings require the player to find blueprints or buy them from merchants.
Synopsis Setting and characters SpellForce 3 is set in a fictional fantasy world called Eo, 500 years before events in SpellForce: The Order of Dawn. Several races such as humans, elves, orcs and dwarves co-exist and magic is an important part of life. The player controls Tahar, the child of Isamo Tahar. Tahar quests alongside a number of characters that were mentioned in the first game as the mages of The Circle. Among them are Yria, an elven white mage; Isgrimm, a dwarven archaeologist; Rohen Tahir, a human mage and former follower of Isamo; Uram, a demon summoner; Ianna, an assassin; Undergast, a mage who is able to wield both light and dark magic; and Gor, an orcish shaman and chieftain.
Plot Isamo Tahar, a powerful mage, has started a rebellion of fellow mages against the crown (known as the Mage Wars). General Sentenza Noria, tasked by the queen of Nortander with eliminating Isamo, travels with his companions – siblings Anselm and Gwen and young Betrand – to Isamo's hideout in The Eye. Upon arrival at Isamo's laboratory, they learn that his child tried to betray him and is about to be executed. Noria saves the child, but Gwen dies and Isamo escapes. Noria takes Isamo's child to the queen, who grants them amnesty and allows them to train as a Wolf Guard.
Eight years later the Mage Wars are over. At some point during the wars, Isamo was killed in an assault on Greykeep castle. A cult called the Purity of Light appears, spurred on by public resentment of the mages. The Purity preaches that Aonir, the god of gods, will return when magic use is banished. The cult persecutes the mages, an action tolerated by the queen's Lord Marshall Angar. Isamo's child (called Tahar) is now a corporal in the Wolf Guard, serving alongside Betrand in Greykeep. When the Bloodburn, a mysterious plague, ravages the kingdom and kills non-mages randomly, they travel to Liannon to discover the Bloodburn is magical in nature. While trying to stop Noria destroying the town, Tahar is attacked by Anselm, who blames Tahar for his sister Gwen's death and they kill Anselm in self-defense. Sentenced to death, Tahar is incarcerated beneath the Keep where they befriend Yria, an elven light magic user. The Purity of Light's leader, Rondar Lacaine, asks for their help to stop the Bloodburn and gives them runes that allow them to use the Godstones. He tasks them to travel to Farlon's Hope to find Isgrimm, a dwarven archaeologist looking for Mulandir, the lost city of the Shapers. The Shapers were an extinct race that ruled Eo with their advanced technology and magic millennia ago.
Tahar and Yria find Isgrimm and Mulandir where Isgrimm determines that the city's Nexus, a powerful energy source and source of Shaper knowledge, might help determine the cause of the Bloodburn. Outbreaks of the plague occur after a Shaper song is heard. Tahar establishes a base of operations in Mulandir and convinces the Mohir Elves, the human Wayfarers and the Orcish Firewielder tribe to help find a cure. They locate the Bloodburn's source inside Isamo's old laboratory in The Eye. Joined by Lacaine, Tahar travels to their father's old laboratory where they fight Noria's forces, who believe Tahar is a traitor. After defeating Noria in battle, they discover that the source of the plague is a Shaper woman, who is also Tahar's mother. In an act of betrayal, Lacaine steals her essence, seals it in an amulet and leaves Tahar to die.
Several weeks later, Tahar awakens in Mulandir to find Lacaine has taken control of Greykeep and is marching on Mulandir. After driving back Lacaine's forces, Tahar, now aided by the Lord Marshall, travels to strengthen their union. After rescuing Angar's sister, the Lady Myriah Ultran, from Lacaine's mind control, they seek an alliance of the remaining noble houses. Lacaine amasses his combined forces in The Golden Road, a region near Greykeep. Tahar's allied forces defeat Lacaine and march on Greykeep, defeating Lacaine's lieutenants and a brainwashed Betrand. They find Lacaine trying to use the essence he stole to summon Aonir, but instead summoning a beast from another world. Tahar defeats Lacaine and the beast, but Angar dies. Shortly afterwards, the queen wakes from her coma. She proposes a committee of mages called The Circle which she invites all of Tahar's companions to join. Tahar's future is left unclear but Yria mentions several things that still need to be done.
Development