Castle sim Stronghold getting a new Definitive Edition

Upgraded visuals, m’lord

Firefly Studios is celebrating the twenty-year legacy of the Stronghold series with an all-new Definitive Edition of the original game. Stronghold: Definitive Edition is updating the two-decade-old castle sim with upgraded visuals, modernized gameplay, Steam-integrated multiplayer, and a brand-new campaign.

Stronghold: Definitive Edition will feature the original game’s classic military and economic campaigns as well as a new 14-mission narrative campaign. Furthermore, a 10-mission “Castle Trail” mission pack will allow you to defend or siege real historical castles. There will also be Steam Workshop integration allowing players to create and share their own maps.

We also got a nifty reveal trailer showing off the pretty new visuals:

“We have been itching to build this game for years now,” said Simon Bradbury, Co-Founder and Design Lead at Firefly Studios. “It’s been exciting getting to work with some of the team from back in 1999. Coders, artists, even some of the original voice actors! Stronghold is over 20 years old now, but getting our hands on many areas of the game like updated art, better UI, UX improvements and new campaign missions, these are all things that make us happy. This is the start of a new era for Stronghold and we can’t wait to show you what we’ve been working on.”

If you never got a chance to check out this series, you’re really missing out. Stronghold is essentially a city-builder combined with RTS. Missions essentially had two possibilities. First, you’d take the role of castle commander tasked to build up and fortify your castle against an attack. However, in some missions, you were the aggressor. You had to create an attack plan to lay siege to another castle by finding its weak spots. It was quite intuitive 20 years ago so I’m excited to see how a modern rehaul will hold up today.

Stronghold: Definitive Edition launches on Steam on November 7.