SpellForce: Order of Dawn is played from a third-person perspective, in which players control a custom-made avatar to explore a variety of maps in the game. The game makes use of traditional elements from both real-time strategy and role-playing video games, in which players take on various quests, kill monsters and earn experience to level up and improve skills and unlock the ability to wield new equipment, while at times having to build bases, gathering resources for the construction of buildings, and training units to fight against opposing armies.

For the role-playing aspect of the game, players create an avatar for interaction with the game's world, defining them with a player's preferred stat points to begin with, and focused on one of three classes: fighter; archer; and magician. Each class focuses on a particular aspect of combat, with avatars learning skills to unlock new abilities for use in combat, as well as to unlock the ability to use equipment related to the skill - for example, improving their skill in ranged combat unlocks new long-range weapons for use. Equipment confers bonuses to various stats, and are divided between weapons, shields, armour, and accessories, with the player able to come across new equipment with better stats as they progress in the main campaign. Characters level up by completing quests and defeating monsters - a unique system awards more experience for defeating higher level creatures than those below a characters level, and less for repeated killing of the same creature. Quests are divided into main quests that progress the game's story, and side quests that offer bonuses such as new equipment.

For the real-time strategy aspect of the game, players work to build up bases, gathering resources to build structures and train units, with the ability of forming groups to help with taking on opposing bases. In Order of Dawn the game features two opposing factions with three different races: the Light Side, featuring humans, dwarves, and elves; and the Dark Side, featuring orcs, trolls, and dark elves. Each race has its own troops and structures that can be used, including a unique unit called a "Titan", each with its own cost and requiring specific resources to be spent to build/train them  – wood, stone, iron, moonsilver, aria, lenya, and food. Each base has a set of different buildings to use, some of which need to be upgraded to access stronger units for each race: Military structures to train units; Gathering structures help with gathering specific resources; Tech structures for upgrades; and defensive towers for protecting the player's base from attack.

In the game's story campaign, players visit various inter-linked islands, each of which feature a set of main quests to complete and require making use of portals to move between them; portals cannot be used when the player engages in an island's main story, until it's series of main quests are completed. During the course of the game, the avatar can equip special "runestones" to call forth "Runewarrior" allies - each with their own skill set and class, but set to being lower in level than the avatar's own; they will still level up alongside them. Although the game can be over if the avatar and their allies are killed, players can activate a monument called a "Bindstone", which re-spawns such characters upon their death.

Alongside the story campaign, players can engage in three other modes: Freeplay, which allows players to explore the campaign's world without any quests to deal with; Skirmish, which allows players to engage in RTS matches against an AI; and Multiplayer, which allows players to compete against others online.

Setting edit

SpellForce: The Order of Dawn takes place on Eo  – a high-fantasy world inhabited by severals races, including humans, elves, dwarves and orcs  – that was formed by the god Aonir, and originally consisted of large continents and various islands, with large oceans and seas. Many of the races developed an interest in magic as civilizations grew and nations were formed, with thirteen of the most powerful mages forming a group known as "The Circle". However, a lust for power by its members resulted in a war between them, eventually to gain control on a ritual called the Convocation they believed would grant any one of them control over the elemental forces that Aonir used to form Eo.

Unfortunately, the war came to an end when one of the Circle, known only as "The Dark One", completed the ritual, but could not control the power of the elementals. The Convocation invoked a cataclysmic event that shattered Eo's landmasses, killing most of the Circle in the process. Fortunately, obelisks known as Aonir's Towers helped to keep most of the landmass intact as islands, but with them floating on an elemental sea that no ship can traverse. A Circle mage named Rohen Tahir, who survived the Convocation, spent the years after the disaster working to reconnect the islands to each other through a specialised portal network, ensuring the races of Eo could remain in contact with each other.

The game's story takes place eight years after the Convocation, set within a series of inter-linked islands that used to be part of the northern regions of the continent of Fiara. Players assume the role of a Runewarrior  – one of several immortal beings made from the souls of powerful warriors and magic users, whom the Circle created to lead their armies in their war. Freed by Rohen to investigate troubles in the region, the Runewarrior works on resolving these issues with the aid of fellow Runewarriors.

Synopsis edit

During the final days of the Convocation War between the Circle mages, the mage Rohen Tahir attempts to stop the Dark One, a Circle mage, from invoking the Convovation ritual, but fails. The ritual fails to give the Dark One the power they seek, instead leading to powerful elementals shattering Eo. Eight years later, after having formed a portal network to keep the people of Eo connected to each other, Rohen receives a rune from the war allowing him to summon one of the Circle's Runewarriors, giving them their freedom. In exchange, he asks them to head to the city of Greyfell and contact the leader of an outfit known as the Order of Dawn, who requires help. Shortly after Rohen departs to investigate reports of strange black steel creatures, the Dark One ambushes the Runewarrior, intending to stop them. Escaping the ambush, the Runewarrior discovers Rohen is heading for a trap, and forms an alliance with the Order to prevent this.

After helping to stop attacks by armies of mercenaries and orcs across several islands in the region, the Runewarrior eventually catches up to Rohen to warn them. Surprised to discover the Dark One's plans for himself, Rohen passes on to the Runewarrior the Book of Convocation  – detailing its ritual  – and instructs them to find and assist Hokan, another Circle mage who survived the Convocation. After giving his instructions, Rohen proceeds to trigger the Dark One's trap despite being warned of it, and is killed by it. The Dark One, gloating a war is coming, then seals off the route to his base with the very black steel creatures Rohen was investigating. Seeking out Hokan, a necromancer, the Runewarrior learns the creatures were his creation, called the Iron Ones, which were used to combat a rival's demon army. Learning he no longer controls them, Hokan reveals the Dark One can only be defeated with a Phoenix Stone, an artifact that has the power to defeat a Circle mage.

Finding the artifact from Hokan's information, the Runewarrior soon learns the Order sacrificed several of its members to defeat the Iron Ones and break down their barricade. Wasting no time, the Runewarrior continues to pursue after the Dark One, but is ambushed and robbed of the Book of Convocation and the Phoenix Stone. Eventually, they reach the Dark One's base, and destroy it, before heading after the Circle mage. To their shock, they discover the Dark One is actually a younger version of Rohen, whose future self knew would kill them. The younger Rohen reveals how they had used time travel to avoid dying in the Convocation, and had been seeking out the Book and Stone in his future, stating he intends to travel to the past, before the Convocation, to attempt the ritual again and be successful.

In the ending cutscenes, the young Rohen proceeds into the past and studies the book, but over time he realizes the ritual was a lie, and that the Convocation only granted the worlds destruction. Remorseful, he attempts to prevent events proceeding as they did, knowing his younger self was a fool, unaware history will repeat itself, and that a time loop has effectively ended the Circle's madness for good.

In the German market, SpellForce sold above 100,000 units by early 2004.^[7]

Andrew Park from GameSpot said in his review of the game: ‘SpellForce's unique combination of role-playing and strategy elements makes it worth a look for fans of either kind of game.’ However he said about the voice-over ‘some of it is decent, though the rest is fairly bad.’ The game scores a 7.4 based on 24 reviews by GameSpot for Metacritic.^[5] GameSpot later named it the best computer game of February 2004.^[8]

In the review of Dan Adams of IGN the gameplay and graphics of the game were praised. However he said about the voice acting that it was some of the worst he had heard in a while. He gave the game an overall score of 8.2 out of 10.^[6]

Alex Tsotsos from GameSpy said about the game that as a single-player game, SpellForce shines. However he said the game lacked ‘the plotline choices that mark the best RPGs.’ He also criticized the enemy AI and gave the game a score of 3 out of 5 stars.^[4]

Awards edit

SpellForce and its expansion packs have been awarded with several awards at the Deutscher Entwicklerpreis:^[9][10]

Breath of Winter edit

The first expansion, Breath of Winter, was released on June 25, 2004, and focused on a new story that takes place after the events of The Order of Dawn. In this expansions, players assume the role of a Runewarrior who is summoned by the leaders of a group of refugees to provide them assistance. However, events soon descend into chaos when the group find themselves working alongside a race of ice-elves to prevent a powerful entity reviving two dark gods that could plunge Eo into darkness. Alongside the new campaign and the enemies it introduces, the expansion brought several improvements to the original gameplay, including new items and spells for use in all game modes.

Shadow of the Phoenix edit

The second expansion, Shadow of the Phoenix, was released on November 12, 2004, and focused on a story that takes place after the events of Breath of Winter. In this story, players assume the role of a Runewarrior who is summoned to help stop the madness of the necromancer Hokan, who has come back to life thanks to the events in The Order of Dawn. They soon find themselves on a quest to stop Hokan achieving unimaginable power that could make them a god, finding themselves dealing the resurrected souls of the mages of Circle in the process. The expansion features a more difficult campaign aimed for characters who are above level 28 - while players can choose to play as pre-defined avatars, they may also import those created for The Order of Dawn or Breath of Winter, but only if they are above the minimum level requirement for the expansion. In addition to this, the expansion also introduced two new types of units for the playable races, new maps for Freeplay and multiplayer modes, and allows players to choose whether to use the original PvP game rules, or those of Shadow of the Phoenix, though they may not engage players using the other set as a result.

• Official website
• Spellforce at MobyGames
• Spellforce (Gold Edition) at MobyGames
• SpellForce (Platinum Edition) at MobyGames
• SpellForce: The Breath of Winter at MobyGames
• SpellForce: Shadow of the Phoenix at MobyGames