In the demo, players don the Overlord’s illustrious armour, assemble a team of fighter minions and head off for a session of serious destruction in the once tranquil area of The Mellow Hills. As you descend upon the unsuspecting populace and wildlife that reside in the hills, use your loyal minions to gather life-force from the somewhat unwilling sheep, grow the size of your minion horde, and let the Halflings-gone-bad know there’s a new boss in town.

Top that off with minion upgrades (where else do pumpkins get used as minion helmets?), throw in some peasant intimidation and a show-down with the Guard Troll at the Slave Camp and you’ll have just as taste of the havoc that a minion horde can wreak.

In the full game, players will be able to amass armies of up to 50 minions and select from three further minion types to lead into battle. Then there’s the rest of the twisted domains to explore (and conquer), seven corrupt heroes to defeat, the Dark Tower to rebuild, and the Legion of Terror and other spells to unleash as you strive to be proclaimed the mighty Overlord!

In the game’s seriously warped fantasy world, players will become the Overlord and get first-hand experience of how “absolute power corrupts absolutely". You could be a regular run-of-the-mill Overlord. However, with incredible power at your disposal and a team of evil-minded impish critters, the Minions, on hand to do your bidding, how will you resist the temptation to be wonderfully despotic?!

The Overlord has the power of concentrated badness right from the start and you’ll know how much more of a total bad-ass you’re becoming as the game tracks your ‘corruption’ throughout.

How corrupt you become depends on how you handle any given situation, your actions and how their consequences impact the game world. For example, if you and your minion horde dispose of a bunch of particularly nasty, violent Halflings that have overrun a once-peaceful village, the village’s original peasant occupants will herald you as their liberator. Now each time you pass through, the peasants will welcome you as their new lord and protector, cheering your arrival and giving you offerings.

However, as an Overlord, it’s worth seeing what more can be obtained from the peasants’ gratitude. If you exert some proper feudal repression, they’ll tremble and fall to their knees when you’re in town. If you become truly mean, the poor peasants will resort to cowering in your presence, pray for their lives and even offer up their daughters in order to appease you…

On the flip side to all this nastiness, one of the Achievements players can aim for in the game is finishing 100% Uncorrupted. To be an Overlord of purity requires not killing any peasants, not harvesting souls from living creatures, not betraying your mistress and not exterminating the occasional fantasy race. Now that’s tough!

Controlling a mysterious figure that has inherited the legacy of the evil, long-dead Overlord. Only the player’s actions will determine if they will rise to become the new all-powerful Overlord; it’s all down to how much of a bad ass they want to be in order to succeed… evil or really evil.

Overlord’s key play mechanic is the introduction of an array of impish creatures – the Minions. They believe you are the old Overlord reborn and will use their unique skills to fetch, fight and die for you. Throughout the game players will actively control a horde of these gremlin-like critters and they’ll follow your every instruction no matter how despotic or, for the Minions, life threatening it is.

As the Overlord, players can amass an army of up to 50 minions (with hundreds more in reserve) made up of four different breeds:

• Brown Minions – The Fighters. These are the strongest minions for combat. They will pick up dropped equipment from defeated foes and use it for themselves – pitchforks, severed unicorn horns and the like are some favorites.
• Red Minions – The Fire Throwers. These minions are like archers who hurl blazing fireballs to defeat opponents from a distance. Also, immune to fire, they can clear dangerous paths for the Overlord and the rest of the horde.
• Green Minions – The Assassins. These minions love their stealth attacks. They’ll try to get behind an enemy, jump on their back and then stab them viciously to death – great for ambushes. They’re also immune to poisoning and can turn rubbish left on the battlefield into upgrades.
• Blue Minions – The Healers. These are the smartest of the minions, and the only ones who have the ability to swim. Blue minions can also resurrect fallen minions, and get them ready to join the fight once again.

Overlord is set to ship this summer for the Xbox 360 and the PC, and is currently rated “RP” (Rating Pending) by the ESRB.