After two remasters of legendary titles, Firefly Studios has now announced Stronghold 4. MeinMMO editor Benedict Grothaus loves the series and has followed its development with painful sadness. Now there is hope again.
I’ll just say it: Stronghold 1 was the best game in the series. Yes, I’m largely alone in this opinion, as most fans consider Crusader to be the ultimate of the series, and the success of the remaster on Steam also supports this.
In my opinion, only the first part captures the true essence of the game, particularly through the Central European aesthetics of the castles and environments, which have been replaced by sandstone and desert in the sequel.
However, it’s clear: since Crusader, the series has declined. Stronghold 2 was still somewhat bearable, the third part a technical disaster, and all the spin-offs… at best questionable. Dragons and Asian warlords are cool themes, but not for Stronghold, which takes the historical knight era as a model.
I was accordingly happy when Stronghold 1 received a remaster on Steam, and correspondingly I had little hope for the future of the series. Until now.
Stronghold 4 is coming and looks better than its predecessors
During the PC Gaming Show on the evening of June 7, 2026, Firefly Studios presented Stronghold 4 and showed the first gameplay. It features a kind of tutorial where a devastated estate is to be rebuilt with the help of the advisor.
From the very first images, my thought was: looks like Stronghold 1, only prettier. And that carries through the entire trailer. All buildings, even if they are significantly more detailed than in 2002, I recognize immediately.
Just the brief scene where a wall is being built looks exactly as I remember the game in my nostalgic thoughts (even though I know it was much uglier back then).
“Could also be called Stronghold 1.5”
The colleagues from GameStar, WHO I’M NOT AT ALL ENVIOUS OF, were already allowed to play Stronghold 4 and apparently share the same opinion as I do: Stronghold 4 has already been played: The castle building epic could also be called Stronghold 1.5 – and that’s not meant badly
What Martin Deppe writes there reinforces my suspicion and gives me hope:
Overall, Stronghold 4 could just as well pass as a remake of the first two parts, basically a Stronghold 1.5, and I don’t even mean that in a nasty way. Those who know the classics will find their way around the user interface right away, and the economy system is fundamentally identical.
As before, it’s about building a settlement, keeping the population happy with a lot of varied food and low taxes.
Nevertheless, Stronghold 4 is not a simple remake but has new or polished features like world events shown in the trailer. Sometimes cows get sick, sometimes there’s a drinking contest. Something similar has been seen before (“Jesters are in town, my lord!” or “A bear is attacking the settlement!” are well-known exclamations of the advisor), but they seem more like real events than minor annoyances here.
The new Stronghold will probably get the snodder charm that I love
A very pleasing piece of news from the GameStar article comes at the very end: Stronghold 4 will be released in German! In a time when dubbings are becoming increasingly rare, this news makes me incredibly happy, because the snodder charm of Stronghold makes the game so good.
The sometimes cheeky remarks of the peasants, the ruthless honesty of the advisor, or the jabs with the AI opponents – whether it’s now: “You peasant!”, or: “Sound the drum, blow the horn, the pig is coming straight from the front!” – have always made Stronghold feel more alive than other strategy games.
Since the remasters of Stronghold 1 and Crusader, I actually thought the series would have received a fitting end and I would keep its nostalgia in honor. Fortunately, I was wrong – although, of course, I will first wait until I can play it myself.
And that happens quite early: a demo will be released on June 23, 2026, early access is expected to deliver a story campaign and 22 missions by the end of the year. The full release will then take place sometime in 2027. For me, Stronghold will have strong competition then, as another legendary series returns to its roots with part 4: Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War had a unique feature that no other strategy game ever had – with the latest part, it’s even better
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