SpellForce: The Order of Dawn

aka: Fantasy, SpellForce: Zakon Switu
Moby ID: 11742
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Description official descriptions

EO, the world in which the game takes place was torn apart by a ritual called the Convocation. The ritual caused the destruction of the continents and was performed by each of the thirteen most powerful mages (both light and dark) on EO, who collectively were known as The Circle. The Circle ruled EO before its destruction and had slowly expanded their knowledge and power. Their vast knowledge allowed them to extend their lifespan to a point near immortality. Across EO they resurrected rune monuments that could be used to quickly call forth obedient armies to enforce their rule (known as the Rune) and bring peace to all the races of EO. At some point they learned of an ancient text describing a ritual supposedly granting immense power, possible under a certain alignment of planets. Not willing to share this power, wars between the various Circle mages erupted. When the time came each preformed the ritual, but none could tame the elemental forces and the continents shattered. After the event only isolated islands around magical towers remained. The islands were later connected by magical portals that make travel between them possible. At the start of the game the player is resurrected by Rohen, a former mage of The Circle. He is also the one who connected the islands using the portal system in an act to redeem himself and is believed to be the only mage of The Circle to have survived the Convocation. He instructs you to travel to Greyfell, the headquarters of the Order of Dawn. Soon after this you learn that a second Circle mage has survived and embark on a quest to inform Rohen of this fact.

SpellForce is a real-time strategy game with RPG elements, similar to Battle Realms. Unlike that game, SpellForce gives more focus to the hero. In fact, the player can go into third person view (only for the hero) and play it like a hack and slash game. The game features six playable races. The player character is called a rune warrior, an immortal warrior bound to a stone by The Circle to fight their wars. If the avatar dies, he will respawn at the last activated bindstone (stones around the map that can be activated and used for fast travel).

As the game progresses the player will find rune stones of six races (humans, dwarves, elves, orcs, trolls and dark elves) and hero runes. After being inserted into the rune board, they can be trained at their respective monument and help the player in the quest. The player will also find building planes for each of the races. When a monument of a race is switched on worker units can be trained to gather resources and construct buildings. This will eventually allow the player to train fighting units to overcome an enemy base. With the avatar rising in level runes and items of a higher level can be used to kill tougher enemies. The game has a lengthy single player campaign of 20+ maps. It was followed by two expansions called The Breath of Winter and Shadow of the Phoenix.

Spellings

  • 咒语力量:秩序黎明 - Simplified Chinese spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

167 People (148 developers, 19 thanks) · View all

Creative Director
Technical Director
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Managing Director
Game Design
Mission Design
Additional Mission Design
Interface Design
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Multiplayer Level Design
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Asset Management
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 77% (based on 37 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.0 out of 5 (based on 37 ratings with 4 reviews)

Very interesting game

The Good
First off, the greatest thing in the game are the voiceovers. When you go through the prologue and hear Caele's voice... wow! Few games have as interesting voiceovers.

The story is interesting as you play the role of basically a freed slave (you are a summoned rune warrior). The story takes you on a journey in the aftermath of a great war that destroyed the world eight years earlier.

The character creation choices are interesting, though you are stuck to starting as a human. Why are they interesting? You can choose a fairly diverse character to begin the game with... for instance, you can't just choose to be an Elemental Mage... you must choose a sub category (Ice, Fire, Earth). And the nice part, is that as you progress in the game, you can add on all other classes if you want, or just keep improving a single class.

Another nice thing in the game is that you can get runes that allow you to create other races (basically, you can have your town with multiple races in it... thereby having multiple types of buildings in your town rather than only the buildings of a single race). This is something that may be unique to this game. Other games that had multiple races in the same town usually had the computer control one of them.

The Bad
The game gives you a very zoomable interface that takes you from isometric to 3rd-person... the problem is that the 3rd-person view makes it virtually impossible to do anything, so you are really stuck in isometric except in the plot videos.

It is fairly easy to miss a corpse that has an item (or items) as the graphics for it aren't very noticeable... and since few corpses have items, you aren't usually paying too much attention to corpses. So you can miss some good items if you're not careful.

The Bottom Line
If you like RTS and RPG games, this is a great game for you to try. The game is mostly RTS, so if you don't like that genre, you may want to pass up on this game. For everyone else, it's worth playing.

Windows · by Riamus (8480) · 2004

Stunning Graphics in Brilliant Real-time RPG/Strategy Hybrid

The Good
Endless possibilities to develop your hero. Different abilities for different species. Strategy aspect very good.

The Bad
Needs a patch to work after hero reaches level 12. However, the patch solves a few other major issues as well, which makes the game even better.

The Bottom Line
Become a hero of any of the usual RPG professions, mix and match abilities and fight against the evil forces within the Order. Through many action-packed scenarios you have the possibility to build up a character of immense power, whether they be a wizard, cleric or fighter. There are six races of creatures you may control and a huge catalogue of spells to use. In order to defeat the evil lords you will have to build an army, and in order to build an army you need to build towns. There are also quite a few side-quests for you to complete, both related and not related to the main storyline. Features tens of hours of playing.

Windows · by Klirr (9) · 2004

For rabid RTS fans, RPG fans and everyone else stay away!

The Good
The graphics are pretty good, and so is the artwork.

Good idea to mix strategy and RPG.

The Bad
Where to start... Perhaps I should say that I didn't like the game at all, and that no other RPG gamer will like it either. They have taken the most boring elements of an RTS and added some RPG elements plus a lame story. I have a serious problem with RTS games, mainly because I have to build these stupid "workers" and hand out jobs to them. That's just pointless micromanagement, not gaming. So, while you just want the story to progress and your hero (or "avatar" as this game calls him/her) to level up, you have to produce these stupid workers and spend hours on building woodcutters huts.... sigh. And while in the middle of micromanagement, a band of goblins attack your "city", kill your workers, and you're back to square one. Great fun.

The RPG bit is very basic, some items here and there and some conversations with boring characters you meet. The interface doesn't make it easier. The icons used makes it impossible to understand what function they have.

There's also the cliché scantily-clad-female-with-weird-looking-armour art when you load a game (which takes about 1½ minute). Not even semi-naked girls can save this turkey though.

The Bottom Line
Don't play. Once you have familiarized yourself with the weird interface you're probably bored of the game. For those who think this RTS/RPG thing is something new, I suggest you check out "Rage of Mages" which is a much better game than this.

Windows · by Grov (657) · 2004

[ View all 4 player reviews ]

Trivia

Development

The first three (of overall four) years of development were spent by making Spellforce a MMORPG. In the end it was changed to a single-player title because the publisher JoWood did not want to provide the necessary infrastructure.

Mega Score release

The game was featured as the October 2005 covermount of Mega Score, the longest running Portuguese video gaming mag, but the discs (duplicated in Zaragoza, Spain) kept the SecuROM copy protection measures, which (obviously) recognized the CDs as copies, and refused to install.

To make up for that, the magazine offered the game again (with a non-faulty batch) in the following month, and offered to replace the faulty discs for casual magazine buyers.

Spanish release

Some copies of the Spanish release include an invalid CD key and the customer service was often hard to reach.

References

One of the NPCs you'll meet has the name Rigour Mortis. The name is very similar to a sign of death called rigor mortis (immobility of a dead body). By the way, the NPC is pale-faced.

Information also contributed by jaXen and Luis Silva.

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Related Games

SpellForce III
Released 2017 on Windows, 2022 on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5
SpellForce: The Breath of Winter
Released 2004 on Windows
SpellForce III: Fallen God
Released 2020 on Windows
SpellForce 2: Shadow Wars
Released 2006 on Windows
SpellForce III: Versus
Released 2020 on Windows
SpellForce: Platinum Edition
Released 2005 on Windows
Anvil of Dawn
Released 1995 on DOS, 2013 on Windows
SpellForce: Shadow of the Phoenix
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Monochrome Order
Released 2019 on Windows, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch...

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by John Chaser.

Additional contributors: Unicorn Lynx, JRK, Sciere, DarkDante, Patrick Bregger, Evolyzer.

Game added February 10, 2004. Last modified February 16, 2024.