Players navigate their forces in the eight cardinal/ordinal directions using either the mouse or keyboard, again much like a traditional roguelike (this word will come up a lot in this review: the term roguelike here exclusively refers to the original ASCII dungeon-crawling games based on the original Rogue, and not the myriad other games using that horribly misused title more accurately described as roguelites, such as The Binding of Isaac, FTL, Spelunky, etc).

The grid-based map harkens back to the misty days of early computer roleplaying games, a design choice familiar to players of traditional roguelikes and wargames instead of the hexagonal boards more commonly found in use today. Where Dominions is a heavyweight war-focused fantasy 4X grounded in real-world historical cultures and mythology (Kristoffer has an academic background in comparative religion and history), Conquest of Elysium is a faster-paced, lighter-hearted adventure game with its roots reaching deep into a pool of more conventional low-fantasy media and the table-top role-playing games so beloved of its development team.ĬoE5‘s goal is stated in its title: two or more fantasy-themed characters set out to explore and tame the procedurally generated lands of Elysium, squaring off against their rivals and dealing with the occasional demon-invasion or ant-apocalypse in the process. While some superficial graphical and thematic similarities may be observed between the two titles, Conquest of Elysium is a very different beast, a many-tentacled chimera blending the 4X, survival-strategy and roguelike genres together with almost seamless stitching. Illwinter is predominantly known for their epic magnum opus Dominions, which is also enjoying a resplendent fifth incarnation and probably the most credentialed contender for the title of “Most Complex Strategy Game of All Time”, with nothing remotely coming close to it in terms of sheer volume of content. The first version was released way back in 1993 for the Atari Falcon home computer, and regular iterative revisions for PC have been released since then. This unassuming title screen hides a monster of a game.Ĭonquest of Elysium 5 ( CoE5) is the latest installment in a venerable series of adventure strategy games by Swedish developer Illwinter Game Design, a small team headed by Johan Karlsson (designer/programmer) and Kristoffer Osterman (designer/artist) with additional writing from Daniel Serra and music by Adrian von Zeigler.

Turn down shading on ring of elysium