Gargantuan Elemental patch released: 350 changes that overhaul the game

Stardock's turn-based fantasy strategy game Elemental, released in August, has finally received the enormous patch we've been waiting for. The game launched with some serious technical and AI issues, and creator Brad Wardell called it "catastrophic poor judgment on my part". Since, Stardock have been updating the game regularly with fixes and balance changes, but it's all been leading up to a massive overhaul of the game's fundamental systems and AI: patch 1.1 .

The change list is over 7,000 words long, includes 350 separate changes, and alters things as basic as what character attributes like 'Strength' actually do. If it does what it sets out to, this will be a new game - consider it Elemental's second stab at a launch. We'll be having a thorough play of it and letting you know what we think soon. Elemental players should see the patch in their Impulse games list, check for updates if not.

In October, Stardock announced that those who bought the game in the first couple of months after launch would get the first two expansions free. As I said in my Elemental review , I actually had fun with the game despite its problems. I can't wait to dive back into it over Christmas and see if it's become the game it always hinted at.