It's really hard to make a fantasy RTS game and not compare it to Blizzard's hugely influential Warcraft series. Certainly the first screenshots released for the upcoming Battleforge have that kind of similar art style and look to their units.

However Battleforge, from developer Phenomic, is aiming to be something a bit different. Instead of mining resources to build units and structures, players will buy, sell and trade virtual collectible trading cards that will help them build their armies. Support for online tournaments and clans are also planned. We hope to get more info on the game before its publisher Electronic Arts sends it to stores this fall.

Firefly Studios is all about refined, medieval PC games. In a recent Q&A with Gamasutra, the lead designer for both Stronghold Crusaders Extreme and Dungeon Hero discusses some of his thoughts on developing games and how to make them accessible, fun, and replayable.

"I think so. It's perhaps going to move into a different segment, it's going to be maybe a bit more casual and that's where we've pitched Dungeon Hero. The combat's got to be fun, and easy, but the skill is to make a game that is very accessible and casual, but at the same time rewards people who want to work at it."

For the full interview, which has a lot of interesting information on what it is like being an independent developer and how to make your games seen and heard in an overcrowded marketplace, head on over to Gamasutra.

It's been a little while since the official announcement was made on Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 so Electronic Arts decided to get one of the game's dev members to write up the first official blog entry for the highly anticipated alternate history RTS title.This first entry is written by the game's executive producer Chris Corry and he assures the fans that have been awaiting a new Red Alert game in the C&C universe that they shouldn't worry and that, " . . . we have no intention of letting you down." He hints about their plans for the always entertaining Red Alert 3 live action cut-scenes that have become a staple of most C&C titles.

He also writes about the new third faction, The Empire of the Rising Sun (that's Japan for those who don't know your history) and why the development team decided to add this new side against the Soviets and the Allies in the latest game. Corry writes that in addition to opening the game's universe up it also adds some new ideas for units and structures. He writes,". . . You can't go wrong with the wealth of possibilities opened up by a Japanese faction – ninjas, samurai, mecha, transforming units, psionic school girls (psionic school girls?!?)" Sound like someone is having some fun brainstorming.

We were wondering if Blizzard would be holding a Blizzcon event this year (they did skip 2006) but today the official word is out. Blizzcon 2008 is a go for October 10-11 and it will be held once again at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California. This year's dates thankfully don't interfere with any other major US gaming convention (last's year's BlizzCon was held the same weekend as QuakeCon and Sony Online's Fan Faire events) in the first week of August). Blizzard's press release states that this year's event will be held in three of the convention center's halls rather than just two halls to accommodate more fans.

As usual, Blizzard fans who purchase the $100 ticket to attend will get to participate in evens like panels, tournaments for all of Blizzard's game, costume contests, silent auction and of course the chance to play some upcoming Blizzard titles. There were no specifics but of course you have to think both Starcraft II and the next World of Warcraft expansion Wrath of the Lich King will be available. But will there be a major new game announcement made, perhaps one that starts with a "D" and ends in a "iablo 3"? We will have more info on the event as it drawn near.

So little has changed in recent months -- The Sims 2 and World of Warcraft still completely dominate PC game sales. Sure, now and then something usurps them for a short time, but they always come back. The top 10 PC games in the NPD sales report released this past week:

1. The Sims 2 Kitchen & Bath Interior Design Stuff Expansion Pack
2. The Sims 2 Double Deluxe
3. The Sims 2 FreeTime Expansion Pack
4. World Of Warcraft: Battle Chest
5. World Of Warcraft
6. Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
7. Sins Of A Solar Empire
8. World Of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Expansion Pack
9. Assassin's Creed: Director's Cut Edition
10. Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas 2

That makes four years that The Sims 2 and World of Warcraft have been fairly consistently pwning the industry. The only other PC exclusive on the list is Ironclad/Stardock's runaway 4X RTS hit Sins of a Solar Empire. The others -- Call of Duty 4, Assassin's Creed, and Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 -- are multi-platform titles. WoW's position is no surprise, given the NPD's research with regards to online game revenues. The Sims 2's domination of the charts, however, speaks to a vast, silent market of gamers to whom hardcore games like Rainbow Six don't appeal.

Earlier this year publisher CDV shipped out the North American version of Sudden Strike 3, the World War II RTS title from developer Fireglow Games. Now the developer has announced plans to release a free downloadable expansion for the game sometime near the end of May. According to a press release from the developer you can expect to get three new single player missions in the expansion (two of them will form a mini-campaign) as well as two multiplayer maps. One of them will support up to four players while the other will feature six player support.

That's not all fans of Sudden Strike 3 can expect from Fireglow this month. The developer also announced they will release the map and mission editor for the game later in May allowing folks to make new single and multiplayer maps of their own. Fireglow also plans to release a number of video tutorials to make the process of learning the map editor easier. Specific release dates for the expansion and editor were not announced.

In its most recent issue, The Official Xbox Magazine revived a rumor that 2K Boston (Ken Levine's team, known for its work on BioShock) is working on a game that will reboot the X-Com franchise. Since OXM exclusively covers the Xbox 360, there was no word about a PC version. Nevetheless, X-Com is a PC franchise and since BioShock saw a PC release, we're hoping that we can safely assume the new X-Com will come our way too.

BioShock 2 is under development at the new 2K office in Marin, and that means Levine and friends are working on something unannounced. 2K bought the rights to X-Com last year.

If you're not up on your history, the X-Com games were highly acclaimed and popular tactical combat titles developed by legendary strategy developer MicroProse. MicroProse was originally founded by Sid Meier and also produced Pirates!, Civilization, and Master of Orion.

[Via Kotaku]

Valve's Steam service continues to pick up steam (hehe) with game developers and publishers. Today, independent game developer S2 Games announced plans to offer their recently released FPS-RTS fantasy hybrid game Savage 2 to Steam users which should open up the game to an all new audience.

Just in case you are not familiar with the title, Savage 2 is a multiplayer oriented PC game that lets players choose to take on the role of a foot soldier in a fantasy world with their team members, upgrading their various character classes and battling other team members with tons of weapons, items and even monsters. You can also build structures that will upgrade the team's powers and weapons. You can also play as a Commander that sees the battlefield in an RTS viewpoint. If you are a Steam user and want to purchase Savage 2, you can get a $5 discount until May 10 from the game's normal price of $29.99. If you want to try the game out for free you can via a demo right here at BigDownload.

Wow! You would have thought that Blizzard would have started this kind of service sooner with the success of programs like Steam, Direct2Drive and others. However, the PC game developer has finally gotten into the digital download business for games with the launch of the new download section of the Blizzard Store.

The section is pretty bare at this point. At the moment only three games are available; Warcraft III, its expansion pack The Frozen Throne ($19.99 for each) and the Starcraft Anthology (the original and the expansion collected for $14.99). However we hope that older Blizzard games will make themselves available on the new download store in the near future. Of course, if Blizzard decides to release its long awaited sci-fi RTS sequel Starcraft II on its new digital download store we will bet the house, camper and the condo on the beach that their servers will need a major upgrade.

[Via IGN]

The new World War 2 strategy game from Strategic Studies Group has been announced. If you are a huge fan of WW2 strategy/tactics games with lots of depth and little scope, this new game is for you! Kharkov: Disaster on the Donets (not donuts, although that would be awesome) brings to life the German and Russian offensives near Kharkov in 1942.

In real history, the Germans launched a counter-offensive after the Russian offensive and managed to push them all the way to Kharkov, paving the way for the Stalingrad offensive that took so many lives. As always with intensely realistic historical strategy simulations, you'll be able to influence history through your actions. There's no currently announced release date.

[Via Blue's News]

The folks at Massive Entertainment may be working on the upcoming Soviet Assault expansion to their terrific 2007 alternate history RTS game World in Conflict but the dev team will now also take some time to judge the entries in the just announced official World in Conflict map making contest. People can now take the official map editor for the game and submit their best work in the contest. Massive will judge them and put their favorite in a "future World in Conflict product."

The grand prize winner will also receive $1,000 cash for his or her efforts. Four runners-up will get an Nvidia 8800 series video card. Those runners-up will be chosen for each of four categories; Best Domination Map, Best Tug of War Map, Best Assault Map and most interestingly Best Use of DirectX10. Massive dev team members might even give you some advice on your maps and allow you to resubmit them with their input. That's pretty classy of them. The deadline for entries is June 29.

Relic's excellent Company of Heroes has been going strong for 2 years now, including an expansion pack last year. Once again, Relic has patched their well-received WW2 RTS. This time there's nothing as drastic as new units or comprehensive rebalancing. However, the patch is not without it's bonus. On top of two bugfixes (one resulting in desyncing, the other in exploits), the patch fixed World Builder exporting, allowing players to save their custom maps correctly! This is great news for anyone sick of the default maps and itching for a new challenege.

A little while ago we reported that Pollux Gamelabs, the developer of the recent space strategy game Lost Empire: Immortals, was shutting down its operation due to financial issues. There were some questions as to if the game would continue to be supported via patches. Now it looks like the game's publisher, Paradox Interactive, has found a way to provide players of the game with a patch.

Unfortunately the patch isn't being handled by anyone who actually developed the game but "an active gamer and hobby developer" who is a poster on Paradox's Lost Empire: Immortals message board. While it's great that this programmer (who goes by the nick "bman654") will be leading further development it also means that any patches should not be considered as "official" by the actual development team (although a message board post by "bman654" does indicate that former Pollux team member will have some input). We'll have to see if this effort will be enough to help the owners of the game

It's taken a bit longer than originally announced (thanks in part to a little game called Sins of a Solar Empire) but the second and final expansion pack to Stardock's own space strategy game Galactic Civilizations II has finally been made available via digital download. Twilight of the Arnor adds a ton of new content to the game including improved graphics, new tech trees for all the civilizations in the game, a new single player campaign and more.

If you want to get the 411 on all of the expansion's features go to this page on the game's official web site with all of the scoop. If you already own the game and its first expansion you can download Twilight of the Arnor for just $29.95. You can also get the full game and both expansion packs for $59.95.

A while back, Electronic Arts announced that it had acquired the German game developer Phenomic from JoWood. While at JoWood, the development team was best known for their work on the Spellforce series of fantasy RTS-RPG hybrid games. Now EA has finally revealed what Phenomic has been working on for their new owners; Battleforge.

So what is Battleforge? Oddly enough it's yet another title that mixes two game genres. EA describes it as an online only fantasy RTS game with collectible trading card elements. The press release states that players will buy, trade and win the cards online and then use them to create their armies. The fictional story behind Battleforge (something about mortals coming between gods and giants) sounds pretty derivative at this stage but we are intregied about using cards with strategy and EA claims there will be support for things like clans, tournaments and other kinds of social community features. The game is set for release this fall.