Stardock To Exclusively Publish Gas Powered Action/RTS Demigod

Publisher Stardock (GalCiv, Sins of a Solar Empire) has announced it will be the exclusive retail and digital publisher of Demigod, an action/RTS hybrid from Dungeon Siege and Supreme Commander developer Gas Powered Games, slated for a February 2009 release. Stardock says the "team-based action game" merges both real time strategy and RPG elements, as players take control of a "massive Demigod with the goal of annihilating their opponent’s position in a given arena while preventing the opponent’s Demigod from doing the same to them." The title promises both one-on-one duels, as well as team play against other human- or AI-controlled demigods, with each demigod gaining items, attributes, and experience as the game progresses. As revealed in an interview with Stardock founder Brad Wardell published today on Gamasutra, Demigod will be released via Stardock's forthcoming digital distribution service Impulse, utilizing, as with former titles from the publisher, no copy protection. The game will also take advantage of the unique model Stardock has planned for Impulse, whereby users can opt-in to purchase future expansions and additions to Demigod either singly, or in a subscription-based model that will deliver all future enhancements as they are released, on top of free updates to the game that the developer has planned. "We're well-known for releasing free updates with new features. We don't want that to go away," said Wardell. "With Demigod, we're going to be doing free updates for that for a year. We don't want someone paying five dollars for horse armor or something like that. We want people to get that sort of thing for free. But if they want to get significant new content for a game that they love, here's an option to do that." Said Gas Powered founder Chris Taylor, “Forging our new partnership with Stardock is a big deal for all of us at GPG, and we couldn’t be more excited about it. Not only do we have a proven retail publisher, but we get to partner with a pioneer in the digital distribution space... a company that totally understands what kind of experience our customer wants and the quality game they demand. The whole proposition is truly refreshing.”