All-in-all, well worth your time. Watch as the Rook battles it out! Available in hi-def and standard streaming feeds.

Graphics are nice, but gameplay is really the thing in Demigod.

Defense of the Ancients fans are going to be immediately at home here. Even the game’s lead designer Mike Marr agreed that the gameplay is very reminiscent of that super-popular modification to Blizzard’s Warcraft III.

Players control one of eight widely varied (and customizable) demigods, a super-powered unit capable of using special abilities in the same way a traditional role-playing game hero would use spells to complement their melee combat. Actually, a better comparison would be to Blizzard’s Diablo series, as the game offers players skill trees, and simple, mouse-driven combat that is nearly identical to that series.

You can read the rest of Earnest’s preview here.

Here’s what they wrote:

Players only control their Demigod and its set of abilities. Our time was spent with the RPG-style Torchbearer, a Norse flavored character that can switch between ice and fire modes. We were digging his armored-burn-victim look, which just so happened to feature more armor and less burn. The Torchbearer is all about freezing everything before switching to fire and watching the screen light up as your enemies burn. Our magical offensive certainly got us some kills, but it wasn’t moving the battlefront at all. Once we began to work more attentively with our AI-controlled troops of the non-Skynet variety, the battle quickly shifted to our favor.

Our actions in-game where peppered by murmurs of, “Oh, whoa.” and “I want this game, now” from various onlookers behind us. We were starting to agree with this sentiment. It surprised us to find out that the game is actually running on a version of the Supreme Commander engine, as we saw more visual variety in 30 minutes with Demigod than we ever did playing hours of SupCom. GPG assured us that the system requirements are designed to include low-end machines, which is very much due to the fact that Demigod doesn’t try to do a thousand things at once on-screen while you play it. (our wallets say thanks) Looking at the game, it was fairly hard to imagine that the harpy-like creatures and wiggling death-plant-things were living in the same engine that featured angular robot-spiders and hover tanks that bogged down our computers just a year and half ago. All in all, Demigod looks like it’s going to steal away our precious personal time when it eventually ships on Stardock’s Impulse service next year.

That’s just the kind of thing I like hearing. Be sure to check out Joystiq for their interview with GPG.

Check it out here.

As he doesn’t have a scanner these are just photos, but they are very readable.

Check them out here.

Note: If PCGamer or it’s affiliates feel that we should take this article down, please email us at ian@blizzardguru.com. Thanks.

With over 80% of the trailer concentrating on combat and gameplay, Demigod fans have a lot to digest. And the game certainly looks ready to deliver to the power hungry: whether you prefer nature, magic, sci-fi and tech, or even if you just want a show of brute force, Demigod has it all. Smash up your enemies as a giant stone colossus (the  towering behemoth known as The Rook), command armies of treants and vines as a Fairy-type goddess, or burn your enemies to a crisp as the warlord called Torchbearer. The trailer features gameplay footage showing both general and assassin styles of play, with spectacular powers and troops for each. While this is only a tiny preview of what we can expect from the final game, it certainly seems that no one will be left out in the cold.

The action sequences alone are enough to wet any one’s appetite. But, just in case you’re still craving more—and we know you are—four of the game’s demigods grace the trailer with their divine presence. With no official word yet on the number of demigods to ship at release, the trailer clearly demonstrates four archetypes so far: The Rook, who has become a bit of an icon amongst the game’s fans, shows off his sheer force; a tech-oriented demigod, leading waves of futuristic-looking, artillery-wielding android warriors into combat; the Torchbearer shows off his tele-, cryo- and pyrokinetic abilities with devastating precision against his enemies; and a being I like to call The Naturist, a fairy/druid type creature who seems to wield the mystical powers of plants and animals (is it just me, or does she bear a striking resemblance to Poison Ivy?).

The environments are also finely showcased. Both particle and physics effects seem to come into play as we watch the Rook smash his mighty hammer into the earth, sending enemies, debris and hurricanes of dust in a myriad of directions from the point of impact. Waves of etheric energy appear to literally pour off of the Torchbearer as he focuses his telekinetic attacks against his opponents. The elements used to make up the environments themselves have such a fantastic style to them, it’s almost like watching a graphic novel come to life.

And just to clear up any possible misgivings about the renderings shown in the trailer, Nate Simpson, lead artist for Demigod, came forth on the Official Demigod forums to say:

We have been enjoying the ongoing debate about the authenticity of the trailer.  Yes, every shot in the trailer was taken in-game.  We made no custom animations for the trailer.  The footage was run through After Effects to apply certain atmospheric effects and film grain, but by and large, what you see is what you’ll get.  Steve Thompson, our lead animator, sat down with Jessica Snook, one of our designers, and the two of them camped out inside the game like wildlife photographers.  Steve managed to capture some great moments at some very beautiful angles, and then Howard Mostrom composed some gorgeous music to go with it.  If you still doubt that it’s actual in-game footage, look closely at some of the shots late in the trailer: we managed to immortalize a bug that was generating persistent splats in midair when angels got shot down by towers of light.  That bug has been fixed, so if you could all kindly return the video to us, we’ll go ahead and fix that.

There’s no doubt that Demigod, which is being developed on a variation of the Supreme Commander graphics engine, is poised to be one of the most visually-enthralling games of 2009. With it’s intense action, unique style, and fast-paced gameplay, this trailer has everyone eagerly anticipating more.

We’ve got a brand new interview with Demigod’s Lead Designer, John Comes. Check it out after the jump.

1. How do you plan to balance General type heroes to Assassins in terms of power and utility? To elaborate, would it be possible for a team full of Assassin Demigods take on a team full of Generals, or will it be necessary to mix and match the two archetypes?

This is a great question! This is one of Demigod’s core features. Because we had the game playable so early we’ve been able to experiment with all types of ways to balance the two types of demigods. A team of generals versus a team of assassins will be a completely balanced, enjoyable and action packed game. We believe we’ve found all the advantages generals have over assassins and vice versa. Once we had this understanding, we’ve given assassins and generals counters to the advantages of the other type.

2. Concerning the game’s RPG aspects, does Demigod feature character levels and items that are purchased from game to game, and subsequently reset in new games?

Demigod gives you the whole experience of seeing an RPG character grow greatly in strength in just a short time. In the matter of 20-30 minutes you can achieve maximum level, buy powerful artifacts and win the day. Then when you play again, you start back at level 1 with nothing and can choose a different skill path, choose a different demigod or a set of different equipment.

3. Will there be some form of persistence (e.g. permanent skills) that players can carry from game to game?

There will! Demigod has teamed up with the guys from Stardock to use the Impulse system as our back end. This gives us the ability to have achievements in the game. Unlike other games, Demigod’s achievements will actually be upgrades to your castle. So you’ll be able to get into a game and see how advanced other players are depending on how decked out their castle is. This isn’t just visual flair either, some achievements will actually make your castle stronger.

4. Will Demigod’s online service, Impulse, feature ranking or achievements components? If so, will these have any effect on the player’s aesthetics or serve any kind of function?

As mentioned above, Demigod will be the first game, that I know of, that will show off achievements in game.

5. Likewise, will there be a leveling system that matches players of similar skill together?

We are still working out the dynamics of the matchmaking system but I believe we’d be doing the fans a great disservice if we didn’t match people based on skill level.

6. Will it be necessary for players to connect to Impulse in order to play a game of Demigod together, or is it also still possible to play through LAN? Are there any benefits to playing on Impulse?

There’s tons of benefits of playing through Impulse! Things like community services, match making, auto patching, game add-ons and all the other robust features that Impulse provides will be more than enough reason to use Impulse as the launching point for any game in the Stardock catalog. With that said, LAN play will still be available for the fans who just want a ‘friendly’ game with their buddies.

7. Will Demigod have any support for custom rulesets for players who wish for an experience different than the vanilla game? If so, will this affect their “ranking”, if there is one?

Heh, hopefully with the uniqueness of game play and visual style of Demigod no one considers the game ‘vanilla’.

Custom rule sets are something we are currently talking about, both on if and how to allow them. It’s not something I would rule out but it’s also not something I have an answer for as of yet.

8. Will it be possible for players to create their own custom maps? If so, will it also be possible to share them with other players via an in-game file-transfer system?

I can neither confirm nor deny any aspect of the allowance or extent of the modability of Demigod. (That one is for all you GPGNet forum peeps!)

(For everyone else) We are still discussing how and if we should allow custom maps or any other mod. It’s definitely on our radar and know how much the fans love to tinker with the game. The detail level that goes into the custom maps takes a large team a long time to pull off. So, if we allow custom maps we want to make sure the fans have the robust tool set to make maps that fit their highest expectations.

9. Besides the DOTA and Footmen Frenzy influenced gameplay, are there any plans to incorporate other popular game modes like Capture the Flag, Tower Defense and King of the Hill?

The game play was influenced by much more than just DotA and Footies! I’ve also drawn inspiration from titles such as Team Fortress 2 and the Battlefield series. That’s why I tend to classify Demigod as an action game. I’ve taken the action aspects of all these inspirations and incorporated them into Demigod’s game play. At this point I’m not sure you’ll see CTF, Tower D or King of the Hill in the initial release but I wouldn’t discount the possibility of having different game play in some later content releases.

10. What kind of role will the Strategic Zoom play with regards to the gameplay, especially as Demigod is much smaller in scope compared to Supreme Commander?

I feel like the Strategic Zoom feature that the Supreme Commander engine contains has changed the way these games feel forever. I don’t want to play RTS like game with out it. I would be remiss if I didn’t include it in Demigod. I believe that Demigod uses Strategic Zoom in ways that Supreme Commander did not. Demigod has giants that are actually giant sized because of the zoom feature. When playing Demigod I find that I zoom out to see how teammates are fairing and how the over all war is going. I then zoom in to be able to use my abilities on specific units and hit precise locations on the map.

11. How large are the maps/arenas in Demigod?

They. Are. HUGE!

We’ve tried very hard to make every arena feel like you’re playing in an epic setting. After all, you are a demigod. Minotaurs, which are bigger than a human, are dwarfed by the giants. The giants are dwarfed by the castles and strongholds, which are dwarfed by the sheer size of the arenas you play in.

12. Will terrain, height and line-of-sight play any strategic or tactical purpose in Demigod as they did in Supreme Commander?

Absolutely. However it’s not quite like Supreme Commander. Because of technical reasons, we chose to have the terrain be flat. In light of that decision, we created the interesting arenas that really offset the flat feeling of the terrain. We also created lots of game play that centers around visibility. After all, you still want to be able to ‘gank’ opposing demigods! There are lots of strategic and tactical ways to manipulate your demigod to not be seen by your opponents.

13. Piracy is a major problem that hurts the gaming industry. Can you release any details on how you intend to deal with the problem of illegal copies of the game being played on LAN and Hamachi (a LAN emulator) if not through copy protection?

I can’t speak to this directly, the copy protection is up to how Stardock wants to handle it. Stardock is very much in favor of not making fans and gamers feel like criminals just because a small subsection of gamers pirate games.

14. Are there any plans to port Demigod to other next-gen platforms besides the PC?

Currently Demigod is slated for a PC release next year. Any platforms beyond the PC are not out of the realm of possibility.

15. Last, but not least - when is Beta starting?

“Soon”!

In case you’re reading this for the first time, Demigod uses the Supreme Commander engine, while borrowing aspects of gameplay from RTS mods such as Warcraft III’s Defense of the Ancients (DotA), allowing players to control a single hero unit within a massive online battle.

August. Beta 1. This will not be a “fun” beta. It’s a stress test of the engine. Those of you who were in the Sins of a Solar Empire beta or the GalCiv betas know we’re not kidding. There will be very little balancing in this version. It will also be multiplayer-only at this stage.

October. Beta 2.  This beta won’t be that fun either but it’ll be better than Beta 1. THIS is the key beta in which players give us their ideas and suggestions.  The beta process isn’t just to find bugs but to let players suggestion changes to the game.  There will be a series of Betas 2 (2A, 2B, 2C, etc.) that will be released in which we begin incorporating player suggestions. These will happen quite rapidly thanks to Impulse.

December. Beta 3. This may or may not be a public beta depending on how things go.  What we have done in the past is give players who have been particularly helpful access to late betas so that we can keep tweaking and enhancing with their feedback.

January. Gammas (release candidates).

February. Tentative release date at worldwide retail in multiple languages.

That means to all who haven’t pre-ordered the game yet should better hurry up.

Here are the new screenshots, one of them featuring the hero GUI:

The currency will probably be changed before the release of the game.

Specific information about The Rook.

News Poster
Must be ready and able to post up-to-date news on Demigod, with updates based on Google Alerts, official websites or gaming news websites.

Content Developer
The content developer will be required to produce guides, Demigod profiles, item lists (assuming it’s anything like DOTA), or strategies. Depending on the expertise of the individual, content such as skill calculators or other interactive media are much desired content.

Forum Overseer
The responsibility of a forum overseer is twofold: moderate the forums, and to encourage and maintain activity within the forum by creating new posts, responding to existing posts, and drawing traffic from the internet at large in order to grow the community and its forums. Forum overseers are encouraged to maintain a positive, and friendly attitude towards users.

We are currently looking for:
News Poster (1)
Master Strategist / Content Developer (1)
Forum Overseer (2)

Please feel free to send me a PM via our forums or an e-mail if you’re interested in taking up any of the positions.