In Sorcerer King, the doomsday counter is always advancing; only by recruiting powerful champions, crafting magical artifacts to customize their capabilities, and expanding your kingdom can you stop the Sorcerer King’s apocalyptic plan.

Players are able to explore a vast and detailed world, finding treasure and adventure throughout the monster-infested wilderness. Overcome tough but often amusing dilemmas in hundreds of quests written by Cracked.com's Chris Bucholz, and command your armies in tactical battles against the Sorcerer King's monstrous hordes. You must defeat the Sorcerer King's terrifying lieutenants to unlock the Shadow Gate and eventually battle the dark demigod himself or all will be lost. Again.

A sophisticated "Game Master" AI controls the Sorcerer King's unscripted assaults. Unlike traditional 4X games where evenly matched rival factions race toward diverse victory conditions, Sorcerer King has the player and his enemy playing by an entirely different set of rules. The Sorcerer King doesn’t need to crush your empire, he just needs to destroy the magical shards in order to enact his doomsday plan. Defending the shards, not careful plotting toward economic victory, is the only way to save the world.

Stardock released the second beta for Sorcerer King, which includes incredible new spells that open up new strategic possibilities, new sovereigns to choose from, brand new monsters to fight, and increased faction interactions.

Sorcerer King Beta 2 makes the titular character even more powerful by giving the evil overlord new spells and monsters, but players also have new tools to combat him. World-breaking geomancy spells have the power to transform the land itself into both a weapon and a resource, allowing players to come up with new tactics in the struggle to stop the Sorcerer King’s apocalyptic plan.

New in Beta 2, ‘harvesting’ mountains, forests, and fertile plains allows players to stockpile the goods they need to craft the finest weapons, armor, potions, and scrolls that can give their armies the edge on the battlefield. The price is steep, though, as cracking the world like this pushes the Doomsday Counter forward and the Sorcerer King closer to ultimate victory – and hastens the spread of the corrupted Shadowlands the Sorcerer King’s minions call home.

Two additional sovereigns are newly playable in Beta 2 as well:

• • The Guardian seeks to protect the world with magic that can restore the land, and starts with the noble Ranger hero whose task is to build up an elite party of heroes without attracting too much attention from the Sorcerer King.
• • The Tyrant, on the other hand, sees the Sorcerer King as a competitor. The Tyrant himself and his Warlord champion grow stronger as the Doomsday Counter increases and can secure victory not only by defeating the Sorcerer King in battle, but by co-opting the apocalyptic Spell of Making to his own ends.

Many more additions and improvements are in Sorcerer King Beta 2, including minor faction quests and several new monsters.

Many additions are planned for Sorcerer King as it proceeds toward full release early next year. Among those, minor factions that can be wooed by either the player or the Sorcerer King are being fleshed out with deep questlines and unique units (though from the Sorcerer King’s perspective, the player’s kingdom is a minor faction too – beware of envoys bearing gifts). Five more sovereigns to play as, each with their own skill trees, spell lists, and special units, are coming soon. A limited number of maps are available currently for the purpose of focusing feedback, but many hand-crafted maps as well as random maps will be added as the beta continues.

The Sorcerer King beta is available now for $39.99 (discounted 15% to $34.00 for a limited time).

Key Features:

• Unique, asymmetrical design creates a new kind of 4X gameplay based around surviving the Sorcerer King’s relentless, unscripted assaults.
• Sophisticated "Game Master" AI ensures each game is a new, challenging experience.
• Win the allegiances of independent minor factions before they abandon any hope of defying the Sorcerer King’s dark reign.
• Play one of six different sovereigns, each with their own unique skill tree, spellbooks and units.
• Extensive crafting system allows players to customize their units and seek out ever more powerful recipes to even the odds.
• Hundreds of quests deliver unique items, units, resources and unexpected narrative twists.
• Earn the loyalty of powerful champions and develop them into juggernauts capable of standing up to the Sorcerer King’s most powerful minions.
• Found new cities and build them up to gain access to new units, abilities, crafting recipes and more.