firefly-studios posts

We haven't heard much about the progress of Stronghold 3 lately and now the historical RTS game's publisher Southpeak Interactive has announced that the title won't be out this spring as originally announced. The game's release date has now been pushed back to sometime this summer.

Southpeak's press release states developer Firefly Worlds needs more time to "include a host of great new features" in Stronghold 3 with the developer's head man Simon Bradbury stating, "We want to make sure fans get the game they want and deserve." Specific details about the game's new features were not mentioned in today's press release.

It's been a while since developer Firefly Studios has released an all-new retail commercial game in its multi-million unit selling Stronghold series of historical RTS game. But 2011 will feature the return of the series with Stronghold 3 which once again will blend the gameplay of a sim title as you build your castle and village with RTS elements as you have to defend your creation against outside forces.

Big Download got Firefly's lead designer on Stronghold 3, Simon Bradbury, to tell us more about the game. He also updates us on other projects like its recently launched free-to-play browser game Stronghold Kingdoms and a tiny update on their long-in-development fantasy action-RPG Dungeon Hero.

We haven't had much news lately about Stronghold 3, the upcoming medieval castle sim-RTS game from developer Firefly Studios. However the developer launched a new poll on its Facebook page asking its fans for their opinions on dead animals.

Before you run screaming to PETA, this is a poll for picking which dead animal will be used for the in-game trebuchets. The dead animal ammo was used in those times in the hopes of generating disease among the enemy and in the game the ammo will "cause a cloud of disease that seeps through castles, killing anyone in its path." The four choices in the poll are a Senile donkey, a cage of rabid otters,a retired dancing bear, and a aack of diseased badgers. We don't think you can go wrong with any of those picks.

It's taken a long time but this week developer Firefly Studios has launched its open beta test for Stronghold Kingdoms, its free-to-play strategy MMO game based on its long running Stronghold game franchise. First announced over a year ago the browser based game has the player building and controlling his castle and village while also interacting and battling with other online players.

Stronghold Kingdoms is not the only game Firefly Studios is working on. As announced earlier this year the studio plans to release Stronghold 3, the next version of its more traditional retail castle sim-RTS game series, sometime in 2011.

A few months ago developer Firefly Studios announced it would be making Stronghold 3, the next game in its long running historical strategy-sim series. Today comes word that Southpeak Games will be the publisher for Stronghold 3 and the game is scheduled to ship sometime in the first quarter of 2011.

Along with the publisher announcement comes some more info and the first (very early) screenshots from the title. The game itself will feature improvements in castle construction, the addition of night sieges in the game, two seperate single player campaigns (one with combat, the other with economic goals) and ways to play through real historical castle sieges from history. Multiplayer support will also be added.

After working for the past couple of years on a game that later went on hold, developer Firefly Studios is going back to basics. The UK-based developer has now confirmed that it is developing Stronghold 3, the latest game in their long running historical RTS-sim game series.

Little info on the game itself has been released so far other than the fact that Southpeak Games will publish the title for release in spring 2011. Firefly's last major game project was supposed to be Dungeon Hero, a fantasy action-RPG. The game got a publishing deal with GameCock but Southpeak did not bring that game along to its lineup when it purchased GameCock in late 2008. A teaser web site for Stronghold 3 has launched with a simple yet effective animation.

Last May, developer Firefly Studios announced their plans for the next game in their best selling Stronghold strategy series with Stronghold Kingdoms, an MMO -themed title that would allow thousands of players to interact with each other while building their castles and kingdoms. It's been some time since that first announcement but today Firefly revealed more info about Stronghold KIngdoms.

The biggest reveal is that the game will be a free-to-play MMO that will also involve virtual cards that players will receive each month. The cards will be able to impact various gameplay aspects. Firefly plans to gain revenue by players purchasing optional extra cards. The open beta is supposed to launch later this year.

2K Games won't just be releasing Borderlands for the PC the week of October 26. The publisher announced today plans to release The Stronghold Collection, a retail bundle of all of the games in developer Firefly Studios' castle sim-RTS game series. The collection will ship to stores on October 27 in the US for $29.95 with a worldwide release in 2010.

The collection will contain Stronghold, Stronghold 2, Stronghold Crusader and its recent revamp Stronghold Crusader Extreme and finally the more fantasy oriented Stronghold Legends. Firefly Studios announced earlier this year plans to launch a MMO-themed game called Stronghold Legends that is scheduled for launch in 2010.

UK-based Firefly Studios is best known for their best selling Stronghold series of castle-themed RTS games. Now the developer has announced plans to move into the MMO space with their newly announced game Stronghold Kingdoms.

A teaser site for the game has already launched with Firefly saying that players will interact with thousands of others "in a persistent medieval world". Players can build villages and castle, attack other castles and/or defend their own from invasion and make their own medieval lord. Who knows . . . you might event become King!. The game is scheduled for a 2010 release date but so far Firefly has not indicated if this will be a downloadable MMO or a retail game release.

Gamecock's purchase by Southpeak Games last fall resulted in several of Gamecock's upcoming games being brought into the Southpeak publishing line up. One former Gamecock game that hasn't been heard from lately is Dungeon Hero, the fantasy action-RPG from UK based Firefly Studios.

This week the developer's official web site finally posted up an update on the title admitting that the shutdown of Gamecock "created a number of challenges for us over the past weeks and months". Originally set for release sometime this spring, Dungeon Hero's release has now been delayed. The update didn't provide a new release date and failed to state if the game has found a publisher. It did state that Firefly has "a couple of exciting projects built around the Dungeon Hero universe that we will be talking about soon".

And for those of you waiting for an revival of Firefly's multi-million selling RTS game series Stronghold, there's good news as well. The update states, " . . . we are moving up a gear on the production of the next game in the Stronghold series."

[Via Joystiq]