Swedish developer Illwinter Design Group, well-known for their underground strategy hit Dominions—Priest, Prophets and Pretenders, has signed with award-winning North Carolina publisher and developer Shrapnel Games. Shrapnel Games will be publishing the sequel to Dominions, which will be available on almost every major operating system: Windows, Linux, Solaris, and the Mac OS. This will be the first such multiplatform title that Shrapnel Games has published.

"We're very excited to have a game stretch across so many computing platforms," Tim Brooks, founder and president of Shrapnel Games, remarked. "Now gamers, no matter what OS they may use, can enjoy one of the finest strategy offerings I've played in a long time. We're really thrilled to work with Illwinter and hope that we can offer more OS spanning games in the future."

Dominions 2—The Ascension Wars doesn't stray too far from the original game's hit formula, but rather builds and improves upon it. The Dominions game is a turn-based fantasy strategy series with a strong emphasis on human interaction and involved gameplay. Designed with multiplayer in mind, but with an impressive AI for those who prefer solo play, Dominions 2 may at first glance appear to be your standard fantasy strategy game—think Age of Wonders or Warlords—but gamers who start to peel back the many layers of the game will find a gameplay model that puts its brethren to shame.

Deep doesn't even begin to describe Dominions 2 gameplay yet the object of the game is fairly simple. You're a god, but you're not the supreme god, and well, you sure in Vahalla want to be the big cheese in the sky. So what's a god to do? Send in the Krishnas? Direct mailers? No, you raise up some armies and start kicking the other gods arses until you're king of the hill. Of course doing such entails more than sending a stack over to your opponent to call down the pain on his warriors' heads.

In Dominions 2 players will raise armies, hire mercenaries, lay siege to strongholds, forge mystical items, pray for guidance, hunt down blood sacrifices, assassinate enemy leaders, cast spells, watch as heroes become known across the lands, reanimate corpses, cause an uprising, construct buildings, and much, much more. And all this before you break your fast! Definitely one of the most engrossing strategy games of 2003, if you can think it you can probably do it in Dominions 2.

For a rundown of the multitude of features found in Dominions 2 please visit http://www.shrapnelgames.com/illwinter/d2/. Currently in late beta, the game is expected to be released in late October. Pre-ordering is now in effect, and as usual gamers who do so will be able to purchase Dominions 2 for $5.00 off its regular retail price of $44.95.

Related articles, Click here!