Stronghold 3

Critic reviews

• GRGames Radar+

  Alan Bradley · Jun 24, 2012

  4.0

  Developers risk changing too much and destroying the core appeal of a series, or changing too little and producing a sequel that feels more like an expansion pack. Stronghold 3 is a bizarre third outlier, clinging to an aging formula but making changes that actually feel like a step back. The real crime here isn’t that Stronghold 3 is a bad game, it’s the disservice done to a series that has provided so much joy in the past, ruining our nostalgia.

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• GGameSpot

  Brett Todd · Nov 28, 2011

  4.5

  Even though Firefly Studios took the better part of a decade to release Stronghold 3, the developer really needed to work on this one for a fair bit longer. Patches continue to be released in an attempt to improve the game's flaws, however, resulting in improvements to things like game speed and the addition of multiple difficulty settings to address complaints over the tough nature of the scenarios.

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• PGPC Gamer

  PC Gamer · Nov 25, 2011

  5.6

  The Historical Siege mode attempts this, but with no way to call in back-up, every unfair loss frustrates. A more obvious solution would have been a skirmish mode. The best missions in the military campaign already follow this template, and the ability to create custom battles would, at least, have made it easier to get at Stronghold 3's rare moments of excitement.

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• IIGN

  Nick Kolan · Nov 04, 2011

  5.5

  Passion alone isn't enough to make a game great. Stronghold 3 assumes too much of the user initially, and doesn't do enough to keep the village-building fresh and interesting. Bugs and instability plague the user and combat is still a bit of a mess.

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• DDestructoid

  Maurice Tan · Oct 30, 2011

  2.0

  Buried beneath bugs, control issues, harsh mission design and even harsher economic balancing, there seems to be a shadow of the old Stronghold as we remember it; sometimes you'll even have a minute of fun here and there. Perhaps we remember the original through rose-colored glasses, but that memory is infinitely better than the wild disappointment that is Stronghold 3.

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• CCheatcc

  Robert VerBruggen · Oct 25, 2011

  7.4

  The folks at Firefly knew what they had to do to win back Stronghold fans, and they mostly did it: Everything that annoyed people about Stronghold 2 is gone, and some great new features have been added. Nonetheless, Stronghold 3 needs a few patches and maybe a price cut before it can starting winning new fans for the franchise.

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