Sacrifice may just be the kick to the butt that the strategy genre has been waiting for just as Half Life was with the FPS scene. High praise indeed for a title yet to be released? Maybe, but hear me out on this one. For one, it completely does away with conventional resource management. While it won't be the first game to do so, the replacement it offers for the usual resource gathering methods (mining, wood chopping etcetera) is certainly new to me. The two key resources in Sacrifice are souls and mana – the spirits of the dead and magical energy. Your wizard starts with a few spare souls and can mercilessly slaughter any wandering peasants to get a few more, but if you really want to get anywhere you'll have to take them from your enemy by force. This already precarious balancing act (stealing enemy souls while not losing too many of your own) is also joined by a few more. Mana literally erupts from the earth of the floating islands you'll battle over, and you have to tap these spots with structures called Manaliths. If you want to be able to use this mana though, you'll have to spend a soul and summon a Mana Hore or three to channel the mana from these Manaliths to wherever you are. However, souls spent on Mana Hores are not spent on fighting creatures. And speaking of fighting creatures, you'll need to spare a few to guard your Manaliths and Altar (which prevents your wizard from being resurrected if it is destroyed) while making sure you have enough to fight an effective war.

Learning to deal with these and many more unique challenges is an important part of Sacrifice, but they aren't the only interesting things about it. Being a wizard, you can not only cast summoning spells but devastating, earth shattering spells to destroy your opponents such as summoning a Tornado or even a Volcano. Of course these cost huge amounts of mana, meaning you can't summon any more creatures. Making frequent and difficult key decisions has always been an important part of strategy games and Sacrifice is no different to most other strategy games in this respect.

What more can be said about Sacrifice that has not been said before? The terrain and creatures are utterly gorgeous, both colourful and detailed. The gameplay is unique and since things are always viewed from the perspective of your wizard it feels very different to any other RTS from the outset, almost feeling a little like Quake at times if the beta if anything to go by. Of course, that'd have to be Quake from a third person perspective with terrain, mana, soul stealing and creature summoning, but the feeling is still somehow there and since its so unique it's no bad thing. The official release date for Sacrifice is “before Christmas” and while it isn't gold yet, if the recent press beta is anything to go by it's certainly close.

See Sharky's preview here.