The games take place on a planet called Eo, a high fantasy world ruled by near-immortal mages (collectively known as The Circle) and inhabited by various sapient races, such as humans, dwarves, (dark) elves, orcs and trolls. The mages used servants called rune warriors, summoned from magical monuments, to keep peace.
Several years before the start of the first game in the series, the mages discovered an ancient text describing the Convocation: a dangerous, but supposedly power-granting ritual. They started fighting amongst themselves, rune warriors being their main weapons of war. When the planets and stars aligned, enabling the start of the ritual, each of the 13 of the most powerful mages performed the ritual; however, unable to control the power, the world was shattered.
Where once stood great continents of Fiara, Urgath and Xu, now only small pieces of land remain, centered around magical towers created by Aonir, the Star God.
The first game in the series begins with a reappearance of one of the Circle mages: Rohen. He summons a Rune warrior (the protagonist) to save the world.
The real time strategy aspects of SpellForce games mirror the Warcraft fantasy real time strategy games. These include the ability to control several separate factions such as "The Realm" (humans, elves and dwarves), "The Pact" (dark elves, gargoyles and shadows), and "The Clans" (orcs, trolls and barbarians). Each faction has its own individual troop and building types.
SpellForce games have several game modes, including campaign mode (expositional), skirmish mode (real time strategy based), and free play (similar to campaign mode but without an overarching plot). SpellForce can also be played cooperatively or competitively in multiplayer mode.
Games
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On March 1, 2004, JoWooD announced the first SpellForce expansion pack named SpellForce: The Breath of Winter.[8] The expansion pack features over 40 hours of new single player campaign gameplay.
SpellForce: Shadow of the Phoenix
Shadow of the Phoenix was released on November 12, 2004. The expansion pack continues the storyline from The Breath of Winter and enables the player to continue playing with a previous game character by raising the character's level limit to 50.[9] The pack also includes upgrades for the game's Titan units.
"SpellForce 2 - Anniversary Edition" was released 29 October 2009.[10][better source needed] It included the first two parts: Shadow Wars and Dragon Storm. It does not include Faith in Destiny or Demons of the Past.
"SpellForce - Platinum Edition" was released 3 November 2009.[11][better source needed] It contains all three of the parts: Order of Dawn, Breath of Winter and Shadow of Phoenix.
The "Digital Extras" were released 19 June 2012 along with the core game.
Three scenario DLCs were released:
17 October 2012: Flink's Secret Diary
18 January 2013: The Golden Fool
15 February 2013: The Last Stand
The "Faith in Destiny Scenario Bundle" was sold 17 December 2012 in advance of the second and third, gaining access to their impending release.
SpellForce Complete Collection
In October 2012 (following the June 2012 release of Faith in Destiny, part 3 of SpellForce 2) Nordic released a so-called "complete collection".[12]
The name was quickly invalidated by the scenario DLCs which it was missing, years before the release of the more obvious contradiction Demons of the Past.
SpellForce 2: Demons of the Past
SpellForce 2: Demons of the Past is an expansion to SpellForce 2.
SpellForce Complete
SpellForce Complete was released 4 December 2015 and, unlike the previously released Complete Collection, did include the Demons of the Past expansion.[13][better source needed] The name still became outdated in 2017 since it does not include the SpellForce 3 series. Despite this, it's still sold under the misleading name by some companies. [14][better source needed] It includes the contents of "SpellForce - Platinum Edition" combined with "SpellForce 2 - Anniversary Edition" as well as the two SpellForce 2 games missing from the Anniversary edition - Faith in Destiny (including the digital extras and 3 scenarios) and Demons of the Past.
SpellForce 3: Versus Edition is a free-to-play version, released simultaneously with the Fallen God expansion. Much like Blizzard's free version of Starcraft 2, it allowed online multiplayer while excluding the offline single-player campaign missions.[20]
SpellForce 3: Reforced
SpellForce 3: Reforced is an upgraded version of SpellForce 3. On 6 December 2021, the version was officially released and made available as a free upgrade to owners of the original version.[21]
SpellForce: Conquest of Eo
Spellforce: Conquest of Eo, a turn-based strategyrole-playing game developed by Owned by Gravity and published by THQ Nordic, was officially released on February 3 2023.[22] It received "generally favorable reviews" according to review aggregator Metacritic, based on 11 reviews for Windows.[23]
