disciples-iii posts

With all of the attention given to the launch of Fallout New Vegas on Tuesday on Steam, we thought that the regular Midweek Madness sale event on Steam would not happen. Thankfully Valve has come through and given us a nice price cut on not one but several games.

The games are all a part of the Disciples turn-based fantasy strategy game series. From now until Thursday, all of the games in the series have been discounted 50 percent off their normal price on Steam. That includes the recently launched Disciples III which was first released earlier this summers. You can get that particular game for just $19.99.

If you are taking it easy on this Labor Day here in the US (or Labour Day if you are in Canada) watching the classic Star Wars trilogy on Spike you might want to check out the daily PC game deal on Direct2Drive as part of its Summer Ends sales event. One of the games happens to be a Star Wars-based game.

From now until Tuesday you can purchase the PC port of LucasArts' Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. for just $7.50, a 75 percent savings. Also on sale is the recent turn-based strategy game Disciples III Renaissance which can be purchased for $27.95, a 30 percent savings from its normal price.

Last week's release of Kalypso Media's turn-based strategy game Disciples III: Renaissance apparently had some issues for the retail version in North America. A forum post on the game's official message boards shows that a number of American gamers who have purchased the title have been unable to even install the game off their retail disks.

A hotfix was issued that was supposed to deal with the issue but a forum post by a Kalypso team member said that the hotfix actually caused even more problems. A solution to the install issue is expected to be released sometime later today.

After having a bunch of downloadable games released last week, this coming week is pretty barren for PC gamers with just one retail release and no announced plans for downloadable games. If any other downloadable games are announced and released this week we will update you via a regular news post.

Disciples III: Renaissance: Developer Akella releases this latest game in its fantasy themed turn based strategy-RPG series via publisher Kalypso Media. The title has three playable races to choose from (The Empire, the Legions of the Damned and the Elven Alliance) along with a customizable hero system and more.

The Disciples turn based strategy series now has a new publisher. Today Kalypso Media announced that they would be taking on the North American, Western Europe and Asia Paciific publishing duties for Disciples III: Renaissance. The game itself is being developed by Russia-based Akella. The first two games in the series were developed and published by Strategy First but the third game has been in development for the past several years.

The game itself, due for release for the PC later this summer, will have three playable races (The Empire, the Legions of the Damned and the Elven Alliance), a customizable hero system and more.

[Via email press release]

Just like Steam, CD Projekt's GoG.com web site is also offering a regular weekend sale of its classic DRM-free titles. This week the site is putting up a bundle of all of the games currently released in the Disciples turn-based strategy series.

All of the games have been collected into two titles (Disciples: Sacred Lands Gold and Disciples 2 Gold) and for this weekend only GoG.com is offering to sell you both for just $15.99. If you have bought one of the game's previously you can still get a $1.50 savings when you buy the other this weekend. They should prepare you for the upcoming release of Disciples 3 from developer Akella later this year.

Canadian publisher Strategy First released a number of smaller PC games in the 1990's and in the early part of this decade, both from third parties and their own internal development studios. They created the Disciples turn based strategy RPG series and produced two games in the franchise before they filed for bankrupcy in 2004 and shut down their internal development studios. Strategy First announced in 2005 that Disciples III would be handled by Russian developer Akella.

This week Akella announced that they have now acquired the rights to the Disciples series from Strategy First (Financial terms were not disclosed). Akella continues work on Disciples III with a planned release date in the first quarter of 2009. It is not clear if Strategy First will continue to be the US publisher for the game.

Earlier this month Big Download attended the North American press event for the Russian based 1C Company to check out a number of their upcoming titles. Well, they are not the only Russian based game developer-publisher aiming for a bigger US audience. Moscow based Akella is planning to show a number of upcoming games at next month's invite online E3 event.

The company's official web site has the full list of games being shown (all PC titles by the way). The list includes the WWII naval sim PT Boats, the racing game Moscow Racer, the fantasy strategy game Disciples III, the mech-style sci-fi action game Heavy Duty, the first person shooter Showdown Scorpion and the Greek myth-themed action-RPG Numen (and yes, we know that pronouncing the title makes it sound like a character from Seinfeld).