Age of Wonders 3 will raise dead with next expansion

Hot on the shiny heels of their Golden Realms expansion, Triumph Studios are already planning the nextbit of content for Age of Wonders III. Which, now that I think about, is an entirely sensible thing to be doing. The as-yet-untitled DLC will likely be a bit of a fan-pleaser, as it will re-add Undead to the series, a traditional component of Age of Wonders that has been missing from the third instalment until now. In AoW3, the Undead are being introduced via the new Necromancer class, which should open up all sorts of possibilities (previously, the Undead were thought of as a race.)

Here's Triumph's reasoning behind the Necromancer class. "When we started AoW3 and developed the concept of the leader class system, the possibility of a Necromancer class quickly dawned on us. We think implementing Undead as a class has more potential than as a race, because this way we can model a gradual transformation of the leader, the population and the racial units to the undead state. The more they transform, the more powerful they gradually become." It also means that other races, like the recently introduces Halflings, can become Undead too. Yes—we can finally make Zombie Frodo Baggins, just like Tolkien always wanted.

There are no other details on Age of Wonders 3's next expansion yet, but look up to see a concept sketch of the Necromancer, or click on these words to read a review of the base game.

Cheers, Quarter to Three.

Tom loves exploring in games, whether it’s going the wrong way in a platformer or burgling an apartment in Deus Ex. His favourite game worlds—Stalker, Dark Souls, Thief—have an atmosphere you could wallop with a blackjack. He enjoys horror, adventure, puzzle games and RPGs, and played the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VIII with a translated script he printed off from the internet. Tom has been writing about free games for PC Gamer since 2012. If he were packing for a desert island, he’d take his giant Columbo boxset and a laptop stuffed with PuzzleScript games.