As the clouds finally lift here in Portugal, we are getting ready for the summer and that means videogame announcements are dwindling down ever so slightly until we finally reach the summer season. Fortunately, this week there is still quite a decent amount of news a couple of new game announcements, mainly provided by the folk at Slitherine and their Home of Wargamers that took place last Tuesday.

Songs of Conquest In Early Access

Songs of Conquest, the first game from the indie game studio Lavapotion is out now on Steam and has been fairly well-received by the fans of other, older turn-based RPGs from the 90s like Heroes of Might and Magic and King’s Bounty. I have fond memories of trying to decipher how to play M&M on my Gameboy Color all the way back then. The usual goodness of these tiles can be expected – move around a map by controlling your main character and battle on a hex-based battlefield by controlling your troops and invoking your powers. I haven’t played it (or bought it), but I’m certainly going to book a couple of hours this week to give it a whirl when I can. Also, the game is absolutely stunning.

Arma Reforger Is a Thing

A recent leak on Reddit is letting everybody know that while Arma 4 is in the works, Arma Reforger might be coming out to provide “tactical depth” while remaining accessible to a broader audience, “including console users”. The leak claims the game is set on an alternate version of our 1989, and players will fight for the control of the strategic (and fictional) island of Everon, comprised of 51 square km, Everon is a former French colony and a part of the Malden Islands archipelago, surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean. The document highlights the game is now a “military simulation game as opposed to a “simulator” and it belongs in the genre of tactical military shooters and sandboxes.

It is clearly highlighted that the objective is to launch the Arma franchise in other platforms other than PC and to raise awareness for their in-development Arma 4. Other listed features are the existence of 3 factions, 6 vehicles, 15 weapons, 2 types of grenades, and 13 dedicated combat roles.

Obviously, Reforger is a good step for a company that wants to reach a wider audience that is unfamiliar with the genre, and in my book, the more people we have to play with, the better it is. If the recent successes of other similar games such as Squad and Hell Let Loose are something to go by, this might actually be a very savvy business decision. More details will be publicly available on the 17th of May.

Ancient Arenas: Chariots Announced

Qvadriga was quite the hit when it came out in 2014. It was a unique, turn-based (or real-time) chariot racing simulator with quite a lot of depth to its systems. Of course, the thing that separates it from the crowd of other racing sims is its roman quadriga setting. Despite being fairly well-received, Turnopia failed to capitalize on its setting and take its premise into a whole new dimension. That’s precisely what the folk behind Ancient Arenas: Chariots are attempting to do. Not a lot is known of it right now but it’s promising to be quite the spiritual successor to Qvadriga. Here’s what’s known right now:

• A Mansion to manage by building, trading, researching, exploring, and training.
• Divine favors to gain the upper hand over the competition.
• Horse breeding, training aurigas (teams), and assembling new chariots.
• Join a faction (whatever this means?).
• Race in the chariot league.
• WeGo and Real-time controls.

No release date has been announced.

Field of Glory: Kingdoms Unveiled

Last week I released an Ultimate List of The Best Medieval Games of All Time, and by the looks of it, it might have a new entry soon! Meet Field of Glory: Kingdoms, from the makers of AGEOD. The game will run from 1054 well into the 14th century. Given that this was a recent announcement, not a whole lot is known but here’s what we know: the game will feature 375 factions (!), 325 units, 600 buildings, 14 religions, and 90 cultural traits. There’s going to be a focus on dynasties and characters, religion will play a major role in what was a historical unstable Europe and the Middle East. Of course, Warfare will also play a major part and Kingdoms will have a direct integration with Field of Glory II: Medieval so you can control your forces.

I’ve just become aware of the existence of this game and already I’m waiting to see what else is in store for us for future DLCs covering the last remaining centuries of the Middle Ages. No release date has been announced.

Fire and Maneuver Exercises To Take Place In June

I almost forgot this one existed! Fire and Maneuver is a videogame coming from the Youtube celebrity The Armchair Historian and it’s aiming to be one of the few games to seriously tackle the tactical challenges of the Victorian Era and the impact of the Industrial Revolution and the subsequent technological advancements had on the nature of warfare. The game describes itself as having an “innovative simultaneous turn system” (basically a WEGO kind of game) and will put players in charge of seven different European armies. Apparently, these armies will also develop over time.

Despite the lack of any developer diaries since mid-January, the game is set to release in about a month, on the 16th of June into Steam’s Early Access program.

Old World Out On Steam Soon

The Civilization Killer that never was is set to come out a couple of days from now, on May 19th, after an exclusive, year-long stay at the Epic Games Store. As the name certainly implies, Old World zooms its focus on the civilizations that were during the ancient Mediterranean. It’s a classic 4X with some twists here and there – it has a couple of Crusader Kings elements by giving players control over their family trees and the subsequent fate of those within. It gives you more resources to juggle around other than food, industry, and gold- the Civilization Golden Standart- and inserts both wood and stone into the system. Instead of having every unit moving once per turn, now orders are another resource to manage, which in turn opens up a lot of new possible avenues for experimentation.

Old World features mod support.

Home of Wargamers New Gameplay

The Home of Wargamers 2022 took place last week and more gameplay has been revealed during the live stream. Starship Troopers, Master of Magic, and Stargate: Timekeepers were in the spotlight and if you were to ask me, I don’t think they’ll disappoint.

As of right now, only Starship Troopers has a due date and it’s set to arrive on June 16th.

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