Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes, the second standalone expansion for turn-based strategy Elemental, will launch for PC on May 22, developer Stardock has announced. As promised long ago, Legendary Heroes will be free for everyone who bought the original game before Halloween 2010, while owners of the previous expandalone Elemental: Fallen Enchantress can buy it for $20. Otherwise, it'll cost you $40.
Stardock has added another big Civilization gun to its own strategy game arsenal, enlisting Civilization IV designer Soren Johnson to work on its future games. The studio already hired prolific Civ IV modder Derek 'Kael' Paxton in 2010 to oversee its fantasy strategy series Elemental, now overseeing the whole games side of Stardock, and also picked up Civ V lead designer Jon Shafer in 2011, though he's now off doing his own thing. Stardock likes Civ a bit, if you hadn't noticed.
The launch of the original Elemental: War of Magic was disastrous for developer Stardock, but a string of patches and the standalone expansion Elemental: Fallen Enchantress got the fantasy strategy series into pretty decent shape. Another expansion will arrive in April, Stardock announced yesterday, ditching the Elemental name entirely in Fallen Enchantress - Legendary Heroes.
Elemental: War of Magic was disastrous for Stardock. At launch in August 2010, it was buggy, unbalanced, and just, well, a bit bad. Poor sales led to layoffs and the whole affair severely harmed Stardock's hard-earned reputation. A lot clearly hangs upon expansion-turned-standalone Elemental: Fallen Enchantress, then, which Stardock has announced will launch on October 23.
Read more: Discounted or free if you own original Elemental »
Stardock CEO Brad Wardell has always been outspoken. But, was he out of line with his treatment of one former employee? That's what the courts are deciding in an ongoing lawsuit between Wardell and Alexandra Miseta.
Earlier this month, Stardock filed a lawsuit against Miseta, former marketing manager at the company. The company alleges that she is partly responsible for the failure of Elemental: War of Magic. The game's launch was so poorly managed that it led to severe layoffs at the company.
Stardock alleges that Miseta "deleted, destroyed, and/or stole" marketing and analytics information regarding Elemental when she quit the company weeks before the game's launch. The company is seeking over a million dollars in damages. However, Miseta filed a suit against Wardell months after her departure, claiming sexual harassment.
Sniper Elite V2 and Alien versus Predator maker Rebellion Developments is engaged in a little legal scrap with Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion developer Ironclad Games and its publisher Stardock over the space 'em up's name. The problem, Rebellion says in documents recently dug up, is that people might mistakenly think it's behind the game.
Like any warm-blooded human being, the first thing I did when I booted up Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion was build a Titan. Big as Darth Vader's flagship from Empire Strikes Back, these newly-added warships are built to single-handedly change the tide of battle. To my infinite delight, they don't disappoint either--after much anticipation, my giant space shotgun promptly shattered an enemy fleet with a few blasts of its scatter gun.
It's been almost four years coming, but the expansion to Sins of a Solar Empire finally has a release date. Mark your calendar for June 12, and you can pre-order the Rebellion expansion now through the GameFly, Stardock Store, Steam and Impulse.
With the candidates hitting the campaign trail for November's elections, its only appropriate that Stardock updates its politics game with new candidates and debatable issues in Political Machine 2012. Can you make it to the White House?
The so-called "dumbification" of video games, Windows 8, and the sale of digital distributor Impulse to retail monster GameStop are among the topics PC developer and publisher Stardock has covered in its latest annual Customer Report. A Stardock tradition, it's written by its notoriously outspoken CEO and president Brad Wardell.
After selling "more than two million copies worldwide," mostly through its former digital distribution platform, Stardock and Ironclad Games' Sins of a Solar Empire: Trinity is now available on Steam.
According to Stardock CEO Brad Wardell, the March 2011 sale of its digital download technology Impulse to retailer GameStop means there is no longer "any conflicts of interest in offering our titles to other digital distribution channels."
Bricks-and-mortar retail monster GameStop took further bold stops into the realm of the virtual today, announcing that it's acquiring Stardock's digital distribution platform Impulse, as well as cloud gaming company Spawn Labs.
Impulse will continue to run, becoming integrated into GameStop's online store. The deal is due to close in May and full Impulse integration is expected "within the next few months." Financial details of the deal have not been disclosed. Read more »
Yesterday, it was announced (unofficially) that Jon Shafer, the lead designer of Civilization V who recently left Firaxis, had been hired by Stardock to help with the continuing development of Elemental: War of Magic and eventually lead his own team for another game down the line.
Shacknews caught up with Jon for a quick interview, which is presented below. Enjoy! Read more »
Stardock, the developer of Elemental: War of Magic and operator of the Impulse digital download storefront, has hired Jon Shafer who recently left Firaxis Games where he had served as lead designer on Civilization V (via BigDownload).
Shafer will assist with the continuing development of Elemental: War of Magic, which is currently being overseen by Derek "Kael" Paxton who was hired back in October for his experience with creating the Civilization IV mod "Fall from Heaven". Stardock CEO Brad Wardell stepped down from the lead developer position to serve as the game's executive producer and continues to work on the game's AI. Read more »
Stardock is now running a 25-day long sale of games and applications through Impulse, its digital distribution store. The first gaming offer is 75% off of the Tilted Mill Complete collection, which includes the following strategy games:
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