The Disciples series has had its ups and downs, especially when it comes to locking a development studio for longer than one entry past the first two, and so we find ourselves looking at the newly announced Disciples: Domination. Ahead of Gamescom 2025, we were able to watch a live gameplay demo and briefly talk to game director Christophe Garnier.
This time around, development is being handled by Artefacts Studio (The Dungeon of Naheulbeuk), with Kalypso Media still in place as the publisher. Needless to say, fans of the long-running series were mixed on Disciples: Liberation (2021), so yet another refresh of the formula doesn’t come as a surprise. While much of that promise wasn’t immediately apparent in the bite-sized gameplay demo we saw, some aspects of this new installment in the iconic tactical strategy-RPG series felt adequately meaty and modern.
When asked about Artefacts’ response to the feedback on Liberation (from Frima Studio), Garnier pointed out most of the scorching hot feedback from players was centered on battles: “We’re bringing more variety to the combat. It was one of the hot topics and something we wanted to work on… Adding more synergies between the units and the squads and Avyanna, having the class selection much sooner in the game, having more interactions.” Indeed, a key element of the presentation was making sure we saw how the different allied units on the hexagonal grids could work alongside each other and use the environment to their advantage; a highlight was the ability to use the corpses left behind by defeated units in a number of ways.
In Domination, players will reunite with Avyanna, a mercenary who’s ended up as the Queen of Nevendaar. 15 years later, she appears to be struggling to “hold together a crumbling kingdom” as allies leave her and new threats rise. It’s an interesting new beginning and a refreshing twist on the usual RPG protagonist who’s typically the underdog. Beyond the combat encounters and real-time world exploration which happens between them, we also learned about “grievances” that require decision-making and even looking for the counsel of Avyanna’s companions during crises.
“It’s always related to factions, it’s a way for you to rise your reputation among the factions, and you’ll have different crises and grievances regularly in the game. Exploration grievances also come up when you explore the world of Nevendaar. Sometimes you’re going to come across a building or something ancient, and it triggers a new grievance related to a piece of lore,” Garnier explained. Very often, these events will be tied to the main quest and have a large impact on the story. And of course, depending on the factions you please, you get different benefits, including new units.
There’s also a marked difference between regular battles and the big boss encounters, at least judging from what we saw. We were told there are three of them in the main story path, and we were able to see the start of the battle against a giant monster “reborn from tainted mana.” Instead of a battlefield with scattered obstacles and an even-ish number of allies and enemies, this scenario played out more like all the good guys facing the big villain with a giant health bar. Unsurprisingly, the ‘Tangled One’ had some devastating attacks that affected many of the player’s units at once, so the more defensive skills and buffs shouldn’t be ignored in such encounters. We ran out of time to see how everything played out though.
Even at this stage, and despite the limited footage saw, the most interesting element of the combat were the aforementioned synergies and some movement-related skills. For example, Avyanna’s build in this demo allowed her to push and pull enemies around, easily ‘placing’ them on specific hex cells. In tandem with some units’ ranged attacks plus the options given by obstacles and environmental dangers, this gives the otherwise traditional combat system some flexibility. Tactical strategy-RPG diehards would rather go back to the classics if they wanted to play something that’s more static. And if you’re wondering if multiplayer has made it into Domination, the game director shot that idea down quickly: “It’s strictly single-player.”
About the progression systems powering Avyanna and her followers throughout a new mysterious journey, Garnier shared the following: “It’s a bit like in Liberation; you have the castle, where you have all the faction buildings, and you can ‘build’ new units and make the buildings evolve… You also have a reputation system; you have to raise your reputation to gain new bonuses, resources, and weapons and armors that are related to the factions.” All in all, it seems the Queen’s relationship with her remaining allies will define not only the outcome of story threads, but also how players can ‘build’ her and Nevendaar’s army.
As a final note, we were told the story will be “pretty dark” without spoiling anything. “That was one of the main topics at the conceptual phase,” Garnier added. Disciples has always been known as a dark fantasy IP, but it seems Artefacts is making a bigger push in that direction. The setup alone and early story beats back this up, and seeing a visibly tired Avyanna sitting on her throne and not having a great time as the kingdom crumbles is sobering.
Disciples: Domination has just been announced, so it might be a while before we hear from Kalypso and Artefacts again, but what we’ve seen is encouraging. As other series get lost trying to chase trends and become burdened with bloated systems, Domination is looking laser-focused and designed to please its core audience. Let’s hope it all holds up over the course of a long campaign and as Nevendaar’s regions open up.
Disciples: Domination is set to release on PC (Steam), PS5, and Xbox Series X/S at some point in 2026.
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