History VideoGame / SpellforceIII

** Basic combat involves four physical damage types (blunt, [[ArcherArchetype piercing]], [[CoolSword slash]], thrust) and [[ElementalRockPaperScissors four elemental/magic ones]] ([[KillItWithFire fire]], [[KillItWithIce ice]], [[WhiteMagic white]], [[BlackMagic black]]), each with their own resistance provided by armor and other equipment. RTS unit types aren't excempt from this, either. Heavily armored troops are weak against [[ArmorPiercingAttack blunt weapons]], riders are weak against pikemen, [[GlassCannon archers are weak against everything]], and so on.

* {{BFS}}: In fine franchise tradition, greatswords are about as long as their wielder is tall, although they're still fairly tame when compared to the absurdly gigantic [[DropTheHammer two-handed maces and hammers]] whose massive business ends can be up to twice as large as the wielder's head. A normal person wouldn't even be able to lift any of them, let alone use them in combat.

* FakeDifficulty: The Elder Dragon is immune to [[DropTheHammer blunt weapons]]. The game's most powerful melee weapons are almost exclusively of the blunt type, and ranged weapons like bows and magical staffs deal ScratchDamage at best. [[OhCrap You do the math]]. Completing a minor sidequest before engaging the Elder Dragon can yield two non-blunt weapons with bonus damage against dragons, but both are ridiculously weak even with the buff factored in and will most likely cut your DPS in half, if not less. Hope you picked up some decent sword or spear along the way, although everything that applies the Weakened status to enemies works quite well, too.

** The Elder Dragon is immune to the one damage type that the vast majority of ''SF 3'''s most powerful melee weapons use: [[DropTheHammer blunt]]. Considering how useless ranged combat is in terms of pure damage output, and how friggin' tough said boss is, you're royally screwed if you charge into battle without lugging some very powerful swords or lances around as backup (which is difficult by default because there simply is nothing that can rival hammers and maces in the damage department). There's an NPC in the area who will warn you about this problem, but that won't help you much anyway unless you happen to know exactly where you can purchase [[InfinityMinusOneSword some decent equipment]] off the bat, or have someone who can cast the Weakened debuff on the boss.

** Basic combat involves four physical damage types ([[DropTheHammer blunt]], [[ArcherArchetype piercing]], [[CoolSword slash]], thrust) and [[ElementalRockPaperScissors four elemental/magic ones]] ([[KillItWithFire fire]], [[KillItWithIce ice]], [[WhiteMagic white]], [[BlackMagic black]]), each with their own resistance provided by armor and other equipment. RTS unit types aren't excempt from this, either. Heavily armored troops are weak against [[ArmorPiercingAttack blunt weapons]], riders are weak against pikemen, [[GlassCannon archers are weak against everything]], and so on.

* ObviousBeta: So obvious in fact that ''the main menu has a dedicated "Report Bugs" button''. During the game's first year it was most likely in the top three of the most-used buttons, right up there with "Continue Campaign" and "Exit to Desktop". ''SF III'''s release version was so buggy it could give any Creator/{{Bethesda}} game a run for its money. The first patch was auto-installed right after installing the main game, and the next three patches followed within 36 hours. The campaign was still riddled with one devastating GameBreakingBug after the other, to the point that it became impossible to continue the story at several branches simultaneously - character abilities disappeared at random, plot-important characters couldn't be talked to, forced conversations never ended, characters glitched into areas they couldn't leave again by any means, the screen turned black during certain events... It took quite a while before the game became an enjoyable experience.

* FakeDifficulty: The [[BonusBoss Elder Dragon]] is immune to [[DropTheHammer blunt weapons]]. The game's most powerful melee weapons are almost exclusively of the blunt type, and ranged weapons like bows and magical staffs deal ScratchDamage at best. [[OhCrap You do the math]]. Completing a minor sidequest before engaging the Elder Dragon can yield two non-blunt weapons with bonus damage against dragons, but both are ridiculously weak even with the buff factored in and will most likely cut your DPS in half, if not less. Hope you picked up some decent sword or spear along the way, although everything that applies the Weakened status to enemies works quite well, too.

** The game's resident BonusBoss is immune to the one damage type that the vast majority of ''SF 3'''s most powerful melee weapons use: [[DropTheHammer blunt]]. Considering how useless ranged combat is in terms of pure damage output, and how friggin' tough said boss is, you're royally screwed if you charge into battle without lugging some very powerful swords or lances around as backup (which is difficult by default because there simply is nothing that can rival hammers and maces in the damage department). There's an NPC in the area who will warn you about this problem, but that won't help you much anyway unless you happen to know exactly where you can purchase [[InfinityMinusOneSword some decent equipment]] off the bat, or have someone who can cast the Weakened debuff on the boss.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: The Convocation Wars, the creation of the rune-warriors and the shattering of Eo are yet to come, but ''[=SpellForce=] III'' does a nice job of building towards it. Whether you like them or not, your companions already show the traits that will lead to them breaking the world 500 years from now. Isgrimm's refusal to abandon his research into rune Magic or Rohen's idea of a benevolent ruling circle of mages are notable examples of idealistic visions that in time will become corrupted by a lust for power.

* AmazonBrigade: The elves are the only RTS faction to field female troops, and since all units of the same type are 100% identical, they naturally form these. Of particular note are their Protectors, heavily armored [[ShieldBearingMook Shield-Bearing]] EliteMooks armed with [[BladeOnAStick lances]] that can't be knocked down, soak up ludicrous amounts of damage, and project an aura that makes nearby friendly units a lot more resilient as well.

** Basic combat involves four physical damage types ([[DropTheHammer blunt]], [[ArcherArchetype piercing]], [[CoolSword slash]], [[BladeOnAStick thrust]]) and [[ElementalRockPaperScissors four elemental/magic ones]] ([[KillItWithFire fire]], [[KillItWithIce ice]], [[WhiteMagic white]], [[BlackMagic black]]), each with their own resistance provided by armor and other equipment. RTS unit types aren't excempt from this, either. Heavily armored troops are weak against [[ArmorPiercingAttack blunt weapons]], riders are weak against pikemen, [[GlassCannon archers are weak against everything]], and so on.

* InNameOnly: If you've played the original ''[=SpellForce=]'' games, you'll quickly come to realize that ''SF III'' has precious little in common with them aside from the name, the RTS/RPG gameplay combo, and the franchise's most basic lore. A lot of aspects or previous events are ignored, others are crudely retconned, and the general feeling and atmosphere is radically different. Then again, it seems that a good number of people somehow completely missed that it's a prequel about stuff that happened hundred years before the first game.

* MultipleEndings : The main game has only one ending but the first expansion, Soul Harvest, has a LastSecondEndingChoice albeit a bit disguised. The second expansion tops that by having at least three endings : which one you get is decided by how you influence Noag during the whole game.

** The game ''really'' doesn't want you to wield [[InfinityPlusOneSword artifact items]]. All but a handful of them must be assembled from fragments scattered all across the game world, and the corpses/containers they're usually found in are so innocuous that you can run past them a dozen times without noticing. Others require clicking some nondescript statue in the ass-end of nowhere while having specific VendorTrash items in your inventory, like scrolls for instance. Some of those even require you to have actually ''read'' those scrolls beforehand. Other statues/shrines grant their reward only if the active character has sufficiently high stats. A few like the Impervious Protector armor or the Axe of the Mountain can become PermanentlyMissableContent if you didn't do what's necessary on some of the maps that become inaccessible later. Some fragments are absent during your first visit to their respective map and only appear when you return later. In short, if you manage to find and reforge even three of the about one dozen artifacts available without an online guide, you were either extremely lucky or have a serious case of OCD.

* VendorTrash: You'll be picking up a ''huge'' amount of worthless items in no time, most of them run-of-the-mill weapons and armor that're good for exactly one thing: being sold off for the gold you need to purchase actually useful stuff like upgrade blueprints. Gear that provides an actual improvement to your current stats is extremely rare and most often a quest reward or boss drop.

Spellforce III is the third installment in the RTS[=/=]RPG VideoGame/{{Spellforce}} series and a {{Prequel}} to the original game. It was developed by THQ Nordic and Grimlore Games, published by THQ Nordic, and released on PC the 7 December 2017. An expansion named ''Soul Harvest'' was released in May, 2019. It features Dark Elves and Dwarves as new playable factions, a revised UI, as well as flying units.

On Dec 6th 2021, the game was given a [[{{UpdatedRerelease}} updated re-release]] with ''Spellforce 3: Reforced'' which had a myriad of balance and even faction mechanic changes.

!! ''Spellforce III'' provides examples of:

* ANaziByAnyOtherName: Take the Holocaust, switch out Jews for mages, and you essentially have a carbon copy of what the Purity does to mages, FinalSolution included. By the time you stop the lunatics, there are barely any human mages left but for the ones in your army and [[{{Hypocrite}} the Purity's]].

* OneHitKill: Fairly difficult to pull off even on basic mooks most of the time, but there is one particular artefact weapon - the Might of the Giants - that kills any golem or Iron One in one hit, which is an invaluable asset in the last couple missions where the Purity's countless Iron Ones are easily the biggest threat on the field.

* DarkerAndEdgier: And how. Bigotry and FantasticRacism are rampant, a plague is killing people by the truckload all over the world, highwaymen are preying on the streams of desperate refugees, and more. ''SF III'' is also much bloodier and more violent, and has a lot more swearing, than any of its predecessors.

* DysfunctionJunction: Your RagtagBunchOfMisfits is practially an ambulatory pile of issues.

** [[spoiler:Your long-time army comrade Bertrand]] joins the Purity early into the game, and though he never really does anything evil, he's deluded himself into believing that their [[UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans atrocities are for the best of mankind]] to such an extreme degree that he [[spoiler:most likely will attack Pariah just before the FinalBattle, [[TooDumbToLive which predictably gets him killed]] [[CurbstompBattle in seconds]]]].

* FighterMageThief: Played with. Character creation involves choosing three out of six possible skill trees that run the gamut from melee to archery to magic. All combinations are allowed and get a unique name but can't be changed afterwards. It hits a middle ground between the classic FMT class system and the basically unlimited freedom one had in speccing characters in ''Spellforce 2''.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: The Convocation Wars, the creation of the rune-warriors and the shattering of Eo are yet to come, but Spellforce III does a nice job of building towards it. Whether you like them or not, your companions already show the traits that will lead to them breaking the world 500 years from now. Isgrimm's refusal to abandon his research into rune Magic or Rohen's idea of a benevolent ruling circle of mages are notable examples of idealistic visions that in time will become corrupted by a lust for power.

* GameBreakingBug: For about the first year after release, they were pretty much ''Spellforce III'''s defining trait, so a comprehensive list would most likely take up half this article's total length. The game went from v1.00 to v1.10 within four days, but about half the quests and game mechanics were still broken, often to the point that quests were impossible to advance or complete, and said mechanics might as well not've been there in the first place. A prime example for the latter was the [[RelationshipValues companion affinity system]], which simply didn't work at all. A couple dozen patches eventually fixed most of the worst bugs to finally make the game playable without too many problems.

** Some sidequests are failed automatically once certain other quests advance to a certain point, with no warning given in any case. Others continue to stay in your questlog forever despite being impossible to complete because their objective vanished with the conclusion of another quest, also with no warning given.

* HereWeGoAgain: When entering a new map it's never a bad idea to explore as much of it as possible to lift the FogOfWar and scout the area for RTS resources and possible outpost sites. Almost every map in the campaign is revisited at least once as the story progresses, and every time this happens, the area is reset completely - the [=FoW=] is back, your tediously upgraded outposts plus your entire military infrastructure are simply gone, all Godstones need to be reactivated from scratch, and hostile critters are crawling around again wherever you go.

* InNameOnly: If you've played the original ''Spellforce'' games, you'll quickly come to realize that ''SF III'' has precious little in common with them aside from the name, the RTS/RPG gameplay combo, and the franchise's most basic lore. A lot of aspects or previous events are ignored, others are crudely retconned, and the general feeling and atmosphere is radically different.
** Than again, it seems that a good number of people somehow completely missed that it's a prequel about stuff that happened hundred years before the first game.

* TheLegionsOfHell: The Fial Darg are the ''Spellforce'' 'verse version. Their current status is that of a SealedEvilInACan, with the Iron Falcons tasked with keeping it that way by making sure they never leave the tombs they were imprisoned in centuries ago. Unsurprisingly, the Fial Darg aren't particularly happy with this situation and use what powers they have to summon endless legions of undead from the desert sand to throw against the Falcons. [[spoiler:You get to fight one of the actual demons at the climax of the battle to retake the Falcon's fortress from the undead at Aonir's Blade before the tomb can be resealed. Let's just say the people who know about the monsters are right to fear them.]]
** It should be noted that Fial Darg are not said demons but an extremely powerful but small-numbered race that is supposed to bring TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt. The demons are merely their elite servants.

* LightIsNotGood: Don't let the Purity's white robes and use of WhiteMagic fool you. They're a bunch of raving lunatics hellbent on killing anyone and anything that doesn't convert to their religion or fit into their worldview

* OutOfFocus: Of the ''Spellforce'' 'verse's established races, dwarves and dark elves are almost completely absent from the story, with both only appearing in the form of one or two characters each, but no playable army units whatsoever. Most of the game is focused on humans, with elves, orcs and their allied races ranking a distant second.

* {{Prequel}}: Spellforce III is set about 500 years before the events of ''Spellforce'', depicting the creation of the circle and the re-invention of rune magic. Remember the circle mages Hokan Ashir resurrected in Shadow of the Phoenix? Many of them will join your party, including Rohen Tahir, who [[spoiler: served as both [[OlderAndWiser Mentor]] and BigBad]] in the first game.

* {{Retcon}}: Previous lore established the [[MechaMooks Iron Ones]] as having been created by the [[TheMagocracy Circle Mages]] who turned Eo into the devastated CrapsackWorld it is now. The ''SF III'' campaign introduces them as just another type of EliteMooks the Purity came up with.
** A much more serious one with the Shapers' appearance. Spellforce 2 Dragon Storm established that Shapers looked very similar to Elves (with Finon Mir elves being their closest descendants). It was actually an important plot twist - we met the antagonist of the game, the survived Shaper, back when we didn't even knew about his existance. He was there, HiddenInPlainSight, pretending to be just a random Elf. In Spellforce 3 the Shapers became very tall, bald and blue-skinned humanoids, while Finon Mir Elves still look like pointy-eared humans.

* TheUsualAdversaries: Purity and Bane troops, plus the ubiquitous critters on every map. The campaign has you fight elves, orcs and all sorts of humans, but that more or less stops once you've recruited these factions to your cause and they unite against the Purity. Compounded by Bane troops being little more than palette-swapped Purity goons, so most battles past the first major story chapter effectively boil down to "kick the Purity's ass".

* YouAllLookFamiliar: There's only about half a dozen portraits for male and female characters each, and even the ones used by fairly important characters often wind up tacked on minor folks like merchants somewhere else, which may lead to occasional confusion. Becomes especially annoying when some enemy hero uses the same portrait as your PlayerCharacter. That blonde chick with the tiara and the silver armor for instance shows up as a Purity Lightbringer on several occasions.