Recently I had the opportunity to test out Stronghold 4 – a game series that was a huge part of my childhood. I’ve probably spent well over 1000 hours playing Stronghold: Crusader so it’s safe to say that it was my favorite strategy game at that time.
With that said, it’s been a minute since I last played any Stronghold game. Occasionally, I would check out what they were doing but never really be drawn to it. Well, until now. It managed to tingle something in me, at least enough to try it for now.
What Do We Know About Stronghold 4?
Its developers are planning to release Stronghold 4 in early access somewhere in 2026 but they’ve released a free demo on 27th June. It gives you around 40 minutes of gameplay. Which was more than enough to get me hooked and wishlist it for early release. Many of you shared my enthusiasm because 250 thousand people already wishlisted it.
Stronghold 4 is focused on the tale of Penryn of Wethel. In this prequel, they’ll have 22 mission campaigns at the launch. It will feature, and to quote them, “original larger-than-life characters” whatever that means but also we’ll see few familiar faces.
It’ll also have fully-featured skirmish mode with 8 CPU opponents at launch. A customizable castle where you’ll have to balance honour, taxes, food and more in order to keep peace and people happy. Stronghold 4 will also have medieval war mechanics implemented. It’ll force you to consider weather, terrain, and other things that will influence army composition and more.
System Requirements
MINIMUM:
Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
OS: Windows 10 or 11 (64 Bit)
PROCESSOR: Intel® Core™ i5-4670 or AMD equivalent
MEMORY: 16 GB RAM
GRAPHICS: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1060 (3 GB)
DIRECTX: Version 12
NETWORK: Broadband Internet connection
STORAGE: 33 GB available space
ADDITIONAL NOTES: SSD is Recommended
RECOMMENDED:
Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
OS: Windows 10 or 11 (64 Bit)
PROCESSOR: Intel® Core™ i5-7600 or AMD equivalent
MEMORY: 16 GB RAM
GRAPHICS: NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX 2060 (6 GB)
DIRECTX: Version 12
NETWORK: Broadband Internet connection
STORAGE: 33 GB available space
ADDITIONAL NOTES: SSD is Recommended
My Short Gameplay
Straight out of the gate, I’ve noticed something oddly familiar but with a slightly different UI. Stronghold 4 has better visuals than its predecessors, yet it’s far from being finished. There’s still a lot of details that need polishing before even being released in early access.
Castle building seemed very limited and linear but that could just be in demo. Even then I’ve enjoyed building my kingdom, expanding town, raising the economy and building walls around it. It really reminded me how much I used to enjoy playing strategy games, it brought a certain peace and joy to me. For that, I thank you Firefly studios.
They seem to be going back to their roots and really keen on making a good strategy game that we can enjoy and I’m all for it. I’ll be following their development journey and play it as soon as it is available.
If you have any questions for me, leave a comment. I’m here to help, my lord.
