New release: Legions of Ashworld

Ever heard of Legions of Ashworld? No? It’s cool–up until just now, I hadn’t either! I just happened to stumble onto this one by sheer chance. Developed by “Jugilus,” LoA combines first-person exploration of the Might and Magic variety with large-scale strategic battles.

The narrative premise:

The game is set in a ancient fantasy world of kings, wizards and fearsome creatures. When a powerful empire invades the lands governed by humans all the realms are plunged into a great conflict. It is the player’s task to organise the opposition to the invading forces, uniting the kingdoms into an alliance and ultimately in taking the war back to the invaders.

As the various characters encountered across Ashworld are recruited to the player’s cause, the player can then move them around the lands, having them performing a variety of activities, such as hiring mercenaries, buying goods and provisions, and attacking hostile forces. The lands of Ashworld contain many places of interest – especially noteworthy are various temples, from those occupied by servants of wizards’ orders which provide magic services, to ancient abandoned ruins where valuable magic items can be found. Outside the territories where humans reside other races live who may become important allies if persuaded to join the war.

Among the game’s features:

– an open-world environment where exploration supplements strategic planning and tactical decisions
– easy management of resources
– hand drawn graphics in the style of classic, golden age, illustration
– designed to cater for custom scenarios/modding

I particularly like the golden age illustration style–it’s very classy. And hey, what do you know: there’s a trailer!

Legions of Ashworld is now out on Windows and Mac. You can snag it direct from the developer for €9.99 (approximately $13.62 as of today).