Ironclad Announces Sins Of A Dark Age - Free To Play Team Based RTS

This has got nothing to do with the 4X RTS Sins of A Solar Empire. Sins of A Dark Age is a fantasy themed free to play RTS unlike any other. Ironclad are calling it Hero & Commander strategy. It's team based... as in there's a commander and the rest of the player pick a single hero(ala DoTA). No video of the game in action but you can register on their official site, and if you're lucky, you might be picked for the closed beta. Press release below...

Ironclad Games’ Long-Awaited Follow-up Arrives in 2012:Sins of a Dark Age Announced

Epic hybrid blends traditional and action real-time strategy genres for an entirely new and unrivalled strategy experience

MONTREAL – February 21, 2012 – Looming grey clouds crowd the endless sky. Bitter winds and the smell of damp earth do little to mask the pungent stench rising from the blanket of blood stretched across the lifeless valley. Armies of men and beast lay piled high, a twisted mass of spikes and flesh; steam from their bodies still climbing the sheer rocky cliffs. All that remains standing is a monstrous machine of war and four heroic silhouettes honoring their victorious commander. Today’s battle is over, but the war has just begun.

Ironclad Games presents a real-time fantasy strategy experience like no other: Sins of a Dark Age. From the studio that brought forth the genre-blending gem and 2008 PC Game of the Year, Sins of a Solar Empire, comes a new strategy hybrid focused on team-based “Hero and Commander Strategy” gameplay.

In Sins of a Dark Age, players join an online team consisting of one Commander and a small group of Heroes who work together to accomplish a specific scenario goal. Go head-to-head against an enemy team in a short, fast-paced multiplayer match or work cooperatively against the AI in custom scenarios. Earn rewards for yourself and your clan, climb in ranks, and watch and share your most glorious replays. Players can choose from an ever-growing pool of heroes, commanders and factions each of which supports unique capabilities.

Choose the Hero role and you will face the enemy on the front lines as the most inspiring and powerful member of a mighty army. Your success in battle will be well rewarded with experience, unique abilities, and game changing items that will make you an ever greater symbol of power on the battlefield and a critical rallying point for your commander’s army.

Choose the Commander role to devise the master plan for your empire: you’ll oversee your grand army in an epic battle against your most voracious enemies. As Commander, you’re responsible for building your base, directing your peons and positioning your defenses. It’s up to you to properly train your units and use them to support your team’s Heroes in calculated assaults on enemy positions and to capture key resources. The Commander role allows players to call upon larger-than-life ‘Realm Powers’ to turn the tide of battle.

“Sins of a Dark Age is something totally unique in the strategy genre,” said Blair Fraser, co-founder and producer at Ironclad. “Like Sins of a Solar Empire, which blended 4x with real-time strategy, we’ve taken our favorite elements of traditional RTS and action RTS and added our own twists and turns that result in a completely new and unrivalled strategy experience.”

Sins of a Dark Age is easy to learn and accommodating to both new and veteran players of any strategy genre and is designed to minimize griefing and other common causes of hostility in the community. The innovative match design means never missing out on a match or a session being ruined by players dropping out: instantly rejoin games or jump into shorthanded battles to save the day and earn bonus rewards for yourself and your clan.

With leaderboards, stats tracking, online replays, spectating, kill-cam moments and plenty of post-release content in the form of Heroes, Commanders, Factions, Units, Maps and Skins, Sins of a Dark Age is free-to-play strategy gaming elevated to the next level.

Find out more at www.sinsofadarkage.com and register to reserve your name and for a chance to win a beta slot!