stronghold-3 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.

Southpeak Games managed to sneak in its latest financial results late last week for the quarter that ended on December 31, 2010. For the time period the game publisher brought in revenues of $7.5 million compared to $10.1 million for the same period a year ago. The company recorded a let loss of $2.1 million for the quarter compared to a loss of $2.6 million for the same period a year ago.

In the press release, Southpeak stated that it has a "substantial investment" in the success of the fantasy RPG Two Worlds II which it co-published here in the US with TopWare. The release of that game, however, does not figure into the financial results it published last week. At the moment the only upcoming game that Southpeak has announced officially is the PC exclusive RTS title Stronghold 3 which is due out this spring.

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.

While first person shooters, action games and role playing games can cross over from the PC to consoles, strategy games are still mostly on the PC side of things. 2010 brought us some big strategy game releases such as Civilization V and most notably StarCraft II Wings of Liberty. 2011 also has some major turn and RTS based strategy games on tap for release including the latest in a long line of historical RTSs, the return of a major turn based fantasy strategy series and even the latest attempt at an MMO RTS game.

Big Download has picked 10 upcoming strategy PC games that we can't wait to play (in order of their expected release dates) in the next year as part of our multi-part feature on the games of 2011. You can also go back and check out our previous entries on the first person shooter, action and RPG-MMO genres.

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.

We are still not out of the financial reporting season for game publishers. This week Southpeak Games announced that for the quarter that ended on March 31 they generated $7.5 million in revenues compared to $13.5 million for the same period a year ago. Southpeak managed to squeak out a small profit of $192,000 for the quarter compared to a loss of $692,000 for the same period a year ago.

In its press release Southpeak notes that it had now resolved legal issues with fellow game publishers CDV and Paradox Interactive (a recent lawsuit filed by Section 8 developer Timegate Studios was not mentioned). Southpeak plans to release the fantasy RPG sequel Two Worlds II this fall and has most recently secured the publishing rights to Stronghold 3 for its release in 2011.

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.