Releases March 17, 2026
Journals
Dev Journal
FE Animondays - Breathing Life into our Paintings
Ages ago (or, at least, what FEELS like ages ago) when we were nailing down the art style for Elemental, one of the key factors was creating a world where the cutscenes weren't in glaring opposition to the in-game graphics. This was around the same time that Fable 2 was released, where a beautiful pre-rendered intro felt (IMHO) fairly out of place in comparison to the mid-game cutscenes (which were beautiful in their own right). It was that realization - that paintings brought to life... [read more]
Dev Journal
Units matter. Fallen Enchantress comes with several base units already in the game, each designed to look unique and interesting for their faction. We want to make sure new players find units and see enemy units that look nice. We had some fun picking some starting traits for these base units, archers start with a trait that improves their accuracy. Defenders start with Ignore Pain, a trait that allows them to l... [read more]
Dev Journal
Animondays: Adding Some Atmosphere (Literally and Figuratively)
One of the 3 main design pillars being tackled for Fallen Enchantress is 'The World'. Wildlands, randomly generated maps, more quests/lairs/resources/creatures...we've taken all the feedback from WoM to ensure FE delivers with some really engaging worlds. When you start a new game, half the fun will be simply exploring the land! On the visual side, a simple piece of technology that we'll be utilizing to make the world feel more magical is the old-school trick of 'atmospher... [read more]
Dev Journal
There are five primary paths to victory in Fallen Enchantress. They are Armies, Infrastructure, Champions, Magic and Diplomacy. A player has to decide how much he wants to invest in each of those areas, and each area has its own benefits. These represent the 5 sections of our tech tree and research choices are the primary way that players decide what they are going to be good at (and not good at). But other choices play into this too. The decision to leave y... [read more]
Dev Journal
Thoughts on the 1.3 beta series so far
Welcome, my friends, once again to the sausage factory. While Fallen Enchantress continues forward internally, we also continue work on War of Magic. Right now, we’re working on the betas of v1.3 which are known as the 1.2X series (1.2c being the most recent beta). Having programmed most of the changes myself and gotten to play around with them at length as well as listen to feedback here are some of the thoughts I have in no particular order: Despite the considerable ... [read more]
Dev Journal
It’s looking possible that this week will see the first beta of War of Magic v1.3. v1.3 is the most significant gameplay changes since the game launched. We are anticipating having 3 beta phases of it. v1.29 (this build) will introduce most (though not all) the coding changes. v1.29a will being introducing the balance changes and the AI overhaul. And v1.29b and on will be polishing, bug fixing, and tweaking. Here’s what is in the v1.29 build: Brad Elementa... [read more]
News
RPS Interview with Derek Paxton on Fallen Enchantress
Rock, Paper, Shotgun has an interview up with Stardock’s Derek Paxton talking about non-other than Elemental: Fallen Enchantress. RPS: You’ve talked a bit about how you see this as a more “focused” game than Elemental was originally. Is /that/ the focus – the story and the characters? Paxton: The campaign is story-focused, but the traditional game remains with that big sandbox experience. Story is a dangerous beast, because it can rob your game of life and steal options from... [read more]