phenomic posts

This trailer shows off some of the unique factions and armies featured in BatteForge. Battleforge blends the action of real-time strategy with trading card strategy by bringing epic sized armies and gigantic creatures to life.

Download the BattleForge HD Trailer (167 MB)

An upcoming PC game that perhaps hasn't gotten much attention is Battleforge, the upcoming multiplayer only fantasy RTS game from developer Phemonic and publisher Electronic Arts. The game uses collectible card gameplay to boost player's online armies and EA plans to sell "booster packs" for the game for extra content.

Now comes word that EA's online store is taking pre-orders for Battleforge and that folks who make that move will be able get a code that will let them try out the online beta for the game before it's released. There's no word yet on when the beta test for Battleforge will begin. Originally scheduled for release this fall, recent online previews have now indicated an early 2009 release date for the game.

In the latest salvo made in the graphics wars, AMD today announced that they are cooperating with a number of game developers to make their PC games work well on DirectX10.1. AMD claims that only their ATI Radeon graphics cards offer full "top to bottom" DirectX10 graphics support.

The specific games mentioned as receiving full DirectX10.1 support from AMD are Battleforge, the fantasy RTS game from Phenomic and Electronic Arts, Stormrise, the sci-fi RTS game from The Creative Assembly and Sega and the little known RPG title Cloud 9 from NHN Games. AMD has also released a small "Ping-Pong" interactive demo to show off their use of the DirectX10.1 demo. The demo requires Microsoft Vista Service Pack 1. and ATI Radeon HD 3600 series or an ATI Radeon HD 3800 series graphics card with at least 512MB of video memory, the ATI Catalyst 8.3drivers or higher, a dual- or quad-core CPU and 2GB of RAM. Folks without those requirements can download a video showing the demo in action.

It's really hard to make a fantasy RTS game and not compare it to Blizzard's hugely influential Warcraft series. Certainly the first screenshots released for the upcoming Battleforge have that kind of similar art style and look to their units.

However Battleforge, from developer Phenomic, is aiming to be something a bit different. Instead of mining resources to build units and structures, players will buy, sell and trade virtual collectible trading cards that will help them build their armies. Support for online tournaments and clans are also planned. We hope to get more info on the game before its publisher Electronic Arts sends it to stores this fall.

A while back, Electronic Arts announced that it had acquired the German game developer Phenomic from JoWood. While at JoWood, the development team was best known for their work on the Spellforce series of fantasy RTS-RPG hybrid games. Now EA has finally revealed what Phenomic has been working on for their new owners; Battleforge.

So what is Battleforge? Oddly enough it's yet another title that mixes two game genres. EA describes it as an online only fantasy RTS game with collectible trading card elements. The press release states that players will buy, trade and win the cards online and then use them to create their armies. The fictional story behind Battleforge (something about mortals coming between gods and giants) sounds pretty derivative at this stage but we are intregied about using cards with strategy and EA claims there will be support for things like clans, tournaments and other kinds of social community features. The game is set for release this fall.