Ironclad Games developing free to play follow-up to Sins of a Solar Empire

Canadian PC developer Ironclad Games has revealed a follow-up to its hit 2008 strategy title Sins of a Solar Empire: a free to play fantasy game titled Sins of a Dark Age. With this new title, Ironclad hopes to build upon the success of Sins of a Solar Empire by creating another title that blends numerous mechanics from the varied strategy genre. Whereas Sins of a Solar Empire combined both real-time and turn-based elements, Sins of a Dark Age will have players assume control of "Heroes" or "Commanders" to either fight on the front lines or dictate large-scale strategy, respectively. Perhaps the biggest shift for Ironclad's new title is its free to play business model, which stands in contrast to Sins of a Solar Empire's traditional, but successful, pricing structure. When it launched five years ago, the Stardock-published Sins of a Solar Empire saw some incredibly impressive sales. The game, which cost less than $1 million to make, sold more than 400,000 retail units and 100,000 digital copies as of September 2008. At the time, Stardock attributed much of the game's success to its low hardware requirements, which allowed it to reach a much wider potential audience than a top of the line, big-budget PC release. On top of its monetary success, the game was generally lauded by critics, receiving both high review scores and numerous Game of the Year awards. Irconclad is now accepting registrations for Sins of a Dark Age's upcoming beta, and more information on the new title available on its official website.