One of the most common series of questions I’ve been getting over the past month is what the difference between War of Magic and Fallen Enchantress will be.
The marketing folks want me to keep the specifics to a minimum so I’ll focus on broad terms.
The Plague Cat you see on the right would never have been in War of Magic. That’s because War of Magic was much more broadly scaled. Fallen Enchantress, by contrast, is much more tightly designed. Put another way, Fallen Enchantress isn’t an expansion pack for War of Magic. It’s a new strategy game that takes place in the Elemental universe (hence Elemental: War of Magic, Elemental: Fallen Enchantress, there won’t be an Elemental II for example because it would be like having a Star Wars II).
War of Magic, hence focuses on building a kingdom where your primary competitors are other kingdoms and empires. It’s very much like Galactic Civilizations in that sense. The terrain itself in War of Magic is of only minor importance and the individual soldiers and heroes are heavily abstracted.
Fallen Enchantress, by contrast, has the world itself as one of your primary antagonists. The cataclysm has ruined and in the vacuum of civilization other…things have taken hold of the land. From a lore perspective, War of Magic broadly takes place in the West of Anthys, far from the epicenter of the cataclysm. Told largely from the point of view of the men of the West, the races of the East, collectively called “The Fallen” are treated as villains. By contrast, Fallen Enchantress largely revolves the much more hostile and dangerous East. There, we learn that there is a lot more nuance to the various races fighting for survival. The world itself is as much your enemy as Magnar or Kraxis.
Fallen Enchantress is a much more personal experience. Winning is not just about building up the most lethal civilization but also adapting to the environment. As a result, weapons, magic, and technology are much more specific. You’ll need to look at what your opponents are up to and focus on countering it. Biggest mob != Win. You don’t have housing in Fallen Enchantress. City Building is much more specialized. You won’t be building the same kinds of things in every city but instead of customizing your cities such that they can meet the threats and environments they exist in.
Stay tuned.
