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By in Firefly News, Romans: Age of Caesar Comments Off on Romans: Age of Caesar – Firefly’s New MMO

Romans: Age of Caesar – Firefly’s New MMO

We have just announced Romans: Age of Caesar, a co-operative grand strategy MMO and spiritual successor to our online castle builder! Pre-registration for the game’s first closed Alpha is now open, with our announcement trailer revealing Romans to prospective governors worldwide. Building on the unique MMO design of Stronghold Kingdoms, Romans is an online co-op city builder with thousands of players working together to rebuild Rome. The result is a shared world builder that returns to the classic Roman setting designer Simon Bradbury and producer Eric Ouellette made their name with before founding Firefly Studios in 1999.

In Romans players must rebuild the empire as they share resources, re-establish trade routes and protect their cities from barbarian invasion. Experience classic city builder gameplay online across on an entire continent as you build, trade and fight together with 15 other players in each city. Revive the republic and restore the Roman Empire to its former glory! Planned for both PC and mobile with full cross-platform play, Romans: Age of Caesar is scheduled to release later this year.

By in Firefly News, Stronghold Warlords Comments Off on Firefly in 2019 (Stronghold Next & New Project!)

Firefly in 2019 (Stronghold Next & New Project!)

Today Firefly Studios’ resident Stronghold insider Nick returns to reveal our strategy gaming plans for 2019. Not only will you be feasting your eyes on our Stronghold Next reveal this spring, you’ll also be getting a brand new game announcement next week!

Today we’re thrilled to reveal not only that our Stronghold Next reveal is planned for the spring, but also that we’re taking Stronghold to E3! You can expect to see a lot of Stronghold Next this year starting with the world’s best known gaming expo and we can’t wait to show you what we’ve been working on. In addition you can expect an official Stronghold Discord, feature length documentary, behind the scenes videos and plenty of raw gameplay.

For our other fans we have a brand new game reveal planned for next week, as well as plenty of Stronghold Kingdoms updates. Our new title will be another historical strategy game featuring classic Firefly gameplay mixed with a few new innovations, so stick around for the full announcement! Kingdoms players meanwhile can look forward to a healthy dose of updates, new worlds, tournaments and more throughout the year.

By in Firefly News Comments Off on Stronghold Challenge – Episode 1

Stronghold Challenge – Episode 1

Join Aaron & Nick for some intense Stronghold 2: Steam Edition action as they premiere the first episode of the Stronghold Challenge! Watch as Firefly’s devs tackle a series of community-suggested challenges in the first of our Challenge series on our official Firefly YouTube channel. This week Aaron takes on numerous Sir Williams before switching gear to take on Olaf and others in one of our favourite community-created maps. This is all while Nick answers your most pressing Stronghold Next questions over the course of our hour-long stream!

By in Firefly News Comments Off on Stronghold & Chill – Programming

Stronghold & Chill – Programming

Stronghold & Chill returns this week with in-depth discussions, revelations and behind the scenes stories of programming within game dev as Aaron interviews Jack Massey, Junior Programmer here at Firefly Studios. Learn what it takes to cut it in the video game industry as we learn the ins and outs of being a programmer, the bread and butter of a video game studio. Stronghold & Chill aims to bring the developers at Firefly Studios and it’s communities closer together, so make sure you’re subscribed to us on YouTube to catch brand new episodes with our other developers!

By in Firefly News Comments Off on Stronghold Showcase – Episode 2

Stronghold Showcase – Episode 2

This week we’re back with another episode of the Stronghold Showcase! This new series sees Firefly Studios highlighting hidden gems from Steam Workshop, Stronghold Heaven and other Stronghold fan sites giving new life to classic titles. Whether you’re seeking a fresh Crusader skirmish map on which to battle friends or a brand new siege scenario to test your mettle in Stronghold we have you covered! Selecting maps from Firefly Studio’s legacy titles with active map making communities and easy access via Steam Workshop or Stronghold Heaven, Aaron showcases a series of awesome custom maps to dig your teeth into until Stronghold Next surfaces:

Do you have a multiplayer battlefield, siege scenario or cosmetic map you think deserves to be in a future episode? Comment and let us know! We’re constantly on the lookout for cool fan-created content and love spotlighting lesser-known creations that go under the radar.

By in Firefly News Comments Off on Firefly End of Year Outtakes

Firefly End of Year Outtakes

Matt doesn’t know what to do with his hands, Paul does and Andreas keeps messing up his lines… It’s must be the Firefly Studios end of year outtakes! We take you behind the scenes to everything from how we’ve been improving retention and begging for subs through to what has come to be known as the ‘Hubba Bubba Saga’.

Watch as we fail time and time again to produce useable footage with two whole months’ worth of company outtakes. There’s swearing, sweating and everything in between as we pull back the curtain revealing our inner workings and ‘creative process’.

We hope you enjoy this bumper dose of outtakes and look forward to many more in 2019!

By in Firefly News, Stronghold Warlords Comments Off on Stronghold Next Update

Stronghold Next Update

Following our extensive Mega Q&A series we’re rounding off the year with a full development update for Stronghold Next! We dive into the production, programming, art and design of Next in our first ever dev diary. Watch as four Stronghold developers reveal brand new details about the game!

Player feedback is already a huge part of the development and in our new update we go into specifics. We’re improving castle walls, adding classic castle life features, a more cinematic single player campaign and more. In addition the team are planning technical improvements including staged castle destruction, better textures and of course all-new units.

While this is our final Stronghold Next video for 2018 you can expect much more in 2019! We’ll hit the ground running next year working toward our gameplay reveal and everything to come between that and release. Don’t forget to subscribe to Firefly Studios on YouTube to catch the news as soon as it’s available.

By in Firefly News, Stronghold Warlords Comments Off on Stronghold Next – 40 Questions

Stronghold Next – 40 Questions

Multiplayer! Units! Defenses! Our latest Stronghold Next video reveals new details by answering 40 of YOUR questions about the game. Join Nick and Aaron for a detailed discussion about our upcoming game, guided by questions from previous Stronghold Next videos.

Ahead of our full update from the team next week, today Firefly illuminates a few finer details requested by fans. How many Lords can join a multiplayer game? Will there be healing units? Will regular troops be able to knock down castle walls? Together these smaller issues make a huge difference to Stronghold, so we’re laying out our plans at this early stage.

If your questions weren’t in today’s video it’s because we simply can’t discuss the topic until after our gameplay reveal. We will however continue to answer fan questions on YouTube and live streams after the reveal, so keep them coming! Don’t forget to subscribe to Firefly Studios on YouTube to catch our full development update and gameplay reveal.

By in Firefly News Comments Off on Inspirations Behind Stronghold – Castle Life

Inspirations Behind Stronghold – Castle Life

Ever wondered what inspired Firefly Studios to tackle the intricacies of medieval ‘castle life’ with the Stronghold series? Well look no further! This week Aaron guides you through the studio’s creative journey in a new video, realizing a virtual feudal society in its series of medieval castle sims.

Learn how Simon and the original Firefly developers selected which specific feudal industries, services and traditions would make it into the original Stronghold way back in 1999. Find out why your peasant populace were made to be mostly blithering fools as Simon recalls the various torture devices littered throughout your castle.

This is the penultimate episode of our European ‘Inspirations Behind Stronghold‘ series, with our next and final episode featuring the varied siege equipment and castle defenses featured in our strategy series. So make sure you follow Firefly Studios on YouTube to catch our final episode in the series and look forward to more eastern Crusader-themed videos in 2019!

By in Firefly News, Stronghold Warlords Comments Off on Stronghold Next – Mega Q&A (Part 4)

Stronghold Next – Mega Q&A (Part 4)

The Stronghold Next community Q&A series is back! In our fourth episode we answer a further 20 questions, all without spoiling the upcoming gameplay reveal planned for early 2019. While this won’t be our final Stronghold Next video of the year, it is currently our last planned Q&A. That said if we receive enough questions in the comments section we might just be convinced to do a bonus round!

This week we respond to your fan questions about the simulation and economic aspects of our new Stronghold game. How much micromanagement will you be doing? What can you expect in terms of difficulty for new and veteran players? Will Free Build feature AI invasions? Will the beloved Bessy return!? We cover all this and more including our plans to demo the game and how we’ll be updating you on development in 2019 and beyond.

We hope you enjoyed our fourth round of Stronghold Next community questions and look forward to a full development update on Stronghold Next before the end of the year!