With Golden Realms and V1.4 hot of the presses we do not rest, but get straight back to work on the next Age of Wonders III expansion. As we’ve hinted in the past, we’re happy to confirm the coming expansion will include the Necromancer class! Usually we run development journals when items are a little bit further in development, but with this one we want to give an early look on what we’re planning and hear your feedback. First topic: the Necromancer!

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.

We soon realized that the Necromancer would be the most work of all the classes, so this is why we saved thinking about it for an expansion. Not only will this class need all sorts of reanimation skills, but the effects of Necromancy on the population also need to be modelled. How far do we take this? How will the starting population of the Necromancer’s cities change over time? How are the base racial units affected – do all race units get turned into undead? How do we visualize all this? What sort of bespoke undead units does the necromancer summon and how are they different from turned racial units, and the existing (archon revenant) undead units? Lots of questions, but we are super excited about the possibilities and eager to start answering them. So if you can spare a minute away from Golden Realms and V1.4, we’re looking forward to your thoughts on the Necro! 😉