Enter a rich fantasy world of medieval warfare teeming with rage, revenge and bravery. This epic game of strategy and conquest now delivers a vastly larger world and deeper strategic gameplay that expands beyond the scope and depth of the original Warlords III: Reign of Heroes. Five epic campaigns a...
Enter a rich fantasy world of medieval warfare teeming with rage, revenge and bravery. This epic game of strategy and conquest now delivers a vastly larger world and deeper strategic gameplay that expands beyond the scope and depth of the original Warlords III: Reign of Heroes. Five epic campaigns and massive strategic battles serve as proving grounds that challenge the mettle of even the greatest Heroes and Warlords.
Features:
Expanded Gameplay: 4 campaigns and 15 stand-alone scenarios, plus the original campaign and 13 scenarios from Warlords III Reign of Heroes.
Advanced AI: The highly adaptable, challenging and aggressive AI counters every move and devices its own complex and dynamic counter strategies.
Random Maps: An enhanced random map generator quickly and easily creates an infinite number of maps for unlimited replayability.
More Heroes and Units: 5 NEW heroes and 31 units for a total of 15 heroes and 95 units each with their own unique abilities and special skills.
More Spells: Cast 19 magic spells and 9 abilities for a total of 35 spells and 40 abilities.
Simultaneous Turns: Revolutionary simultaneous movements enables you to charge, do battle and retreat all in real-time.
Game Editor: Create your own Warlords universe with the map, item and campaign editor.
Really disappointing that the game continuously crashes on Windows 10. Also keeps warning about being low on disk space every time I run (even though I am absolutely not low disk space). Will update my review when/if the devs release a fix for the constant crashing.
The year when GOG first launched, Warlords III was the game I came looking for. Sadly, year after year the game never showed up, until just now... This game is really special as it reminds me of some of my most formative childhood memories. I played the demo with my cousin everyday one summer and repeatedly after that. This is a fantastic strategy game and I'm so happy to be able to replay it nearly 20 years later.
Love the ability to create and add your own maps and create your own creature pools. Good assortment of hero types which changes the strategy. Of the Warlord series I prefer this one.
Darklords Rising is still as good as it was when me and my dad used to play it together on the family computer.
A fun cocktail of the classic fantasy tropes with truly awesome artwork for some of the units and a short list of wonderfully dark campaigns to play through, a strategic player can win a methodical military victory without relying on hero characters... but a high-level warrior or wizard is capable of destroying entire armies single-handed.
Some of the art has changed in the GOG version - perhaps because of differences in european versus american standards - and I would love the opportunity to play Reign of Heroes, the game that this was technically an expansion for, because that was always dad's favourite. The music was better, he'd tell me. But all told, this version of Darklords is still a very solid adaption of a very enjoyable game.
You ever boot up a modern strategy game, sit through a 14-minute cinematic narrated by a bored British guy, get 72 pop-ups about microtransactions, and then realize the “strategy” is just clicking a shiny button until the game congratulates you for existing?
Yeah. Me too. And that’s why I crawled back to Warlords III, a game older than some of the developers responsible for today’s digital oatmeal.
Let me be crystal clear: Warlords III doesn’t care about your feelings, your tutorial hand-holding, or your Battle Pass tier. It drops you into a brutal, tactical meat grinder where diplomacy is just a fancier word for “temporary meatshield.” No flashy animations, no overpriced cosmetic, just pure, undiluted conquest.
Want a turn-based strategy game that respects your brain? This is it.
Want a game where heroes actually matter and don't just scream generic dialogue about honor? This is it.
Want to spend six hours plotting a perfect invasion only to have it all fall apart because you forgot to vector one flank? Again: THIS. IS. IT.
Warlords III has more depth than most modern “strategy” games have bugs. Every unit, every hero, every fight, it all matters. The AI doesn’t just exist to make you feel smart; it will kick your teeth in while you cry about your precious empire. It’s not here to entertain your dopamine-addled attention span. It’s here to test your tactics and patience.
This game is the strategic equivalent of a black coffee with a rusty nail in it. No fluff, no filler, no DLC bloat, just war, betrayal, and that sweet, sweet feeling of watching the world burn after 70 turns of cold, calculated vengeance.
And the artwork hits that perfect sweet spot: gritty, evocative, and dripping with atmosphere. Every sprite and troop icon feels like it was drawn by a dungeon-dwelling madman with a love for detail and a vendetta against blandness.
I had this game installed on every PC and laptop that I own and will probably play it until I die.
TLDR: buy it, it's good