Releases March 17, 2026
Journals
Dev Journal
A strategy game that is also a world
When people think of 3D hardware and its benefits, they usually think of first person shooters and RPGs. But ever since Galactic Civilizations, Supreme Commander and Sins of a Solar Empire started popularizing strategic zoom the possibilities have really opened up that 3D acceleration, now mainstream, let us do a lot of amazing things. In Black & White, players could zoom out to see the world or zoom in to see individual villagers living their lives. It gave us... [read more]
Dev Journal
One of the things we really want to drive home in Elemental that we think will make it stand out is that a well equipped army is a big deal. The Roman armies dominates much of Europe not because Romans were inherently better warriors but because they were well trained and well equipped. Contemporary fiction tends to trivialize the significance of a non-industrialized society being able to train and equip 10,000 men with swords, plate mail, steel helmets, leather boots, etc. But i... [read more]
Dev Journal
Elemental: Internal debates made external
So how complicated (as internal critics put it) or sophisticated (as internal advocates put it) should the Elemental economic system be? We have the code in for handling a pretty sophisticated/complicated economic engine. But the debate is, is the system sophisticated? Or just complicated. Let me give you the arguments of each camp. Camp #1: “Sophisticated” 1. Everything in Elemental is a resource. Food, metal, swords, armor, horses, you name it.... [read more]
Dev Journal
I’m a map junkie. I love making maps. I even bought a program called Campaign Cartographer years ago just to make maps. One of the features of Elemental is, not surprisingly, a map editor. But the map editor is also being designed so that you can export your creations so you can easily print them out and such. The map editor will let users build theri own mountain ranges, forests, swamps, you name it. Of course, it’s also useful that you will be able to t... [read more]
Dev Journal
As Elemental players know, I had been on Elemental since early this year. Then…Demigod was released and the online experience for that game has been a total cluster. So I had to “assign myself” to Demigod to figure out what the deal was and make sure it got fixed. In my view, too many moving parts. I’m not a huge fan of multiplayer-centric games in the first place. I’m particularly not a fan of peer to peer multiplayer-centric games on the PC because on the PC, unlike on the conso... [read more]
Dev Journal
Countdown to Beta Zero - Spells, Spells, and more Spells!
Welcome to the first of several 'Countdown' journals leading up to the release of Beta 0. While we don't have a firm date for the release (several folks need to recoup from weeks of Demigod all-nighters ), we still plan on getting Elemental's first playable form into your hands for June! Boogiebac (myself) holding a Resturaunt Meeting on City Resources After seeing the amazing starships made by players (and reviewers) in GC2's ship design... [read more]
Dev Journal
Elemental: Modding & Single Player
While a lot of Stardock’s development team has been interfacing with Gas Powered Games to continue to improve Demigod, the Elemental team continues forward. Now a couple of things about Elemental that should be made clear: Elemental will be a single-player focused game. It will have multiplayer but most of the development time will be spent on single player. Elemental will have a story-based campaign. While Sins of a Solar Empire and Demigod do not have story-based ... [read more]