Overlord is an action role-playing video game developed by Triumph Studios and published by Codemasters for Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows, Linux and PlayStation 3. It was released in 2007 in North America on 26 June, in Europe on 29 June and Australia on 6 July.
Development on the game began in early 2006 and the game was announced in May of the same year, with gameplay demonstrated at E3 2006. After over a year and a half of development, its release in 2007 was met with generally favourable reviews, and helped boost overall sales for Codemasters that year. An expansion pack entitled Overlord: Raising Hell was released in late 2007 (Germany only) and February 2008 (worldwide), along with additional multiplayer maps and a local split-screen co-op mode. Raising Hell was also released for the PlayStation 3 in June 2008, bundled with the original game. A sequel, Overlord II, was released in June 2009, followed by a spinoff for the Wii, entitled Overlord: Dark Legend, and a Nintendo DS game called Overlord: Minions.
Overlord is set in a fantasy world, where the player takes the role of a resurrected warrior known as "The Overlord" who has control over hordes of gremlin-like creatures known as "Minions". The player must defeat seven corrupt ruling heroes in order to reconquer the lands and establish his lordship over its inhabitants. The game features a corruption feature, similar to that of the Fable games, but allowing the player to "be evil… or really evil", where certain actions and choices affect different aspects of the story and gameplay. While the Overlord is controlled in a third person perspective, the way minions are controlled brings elements of real-time strategy and upgrades bring those of role-playing games. The game uses dark humour, and is a satirical parody of the traditional fantasy setting and plot. The story was written by Rhianna Pratchett.
Gameplay The game centers on simultaneously controlling the Overlord and an army of goblin-like minions to traverse the 3D gameworld and defeat the seven heroes who slew the Overlord's predecessor, and who have since been corrupted by power. Each one represents one of the seven deadly sins. There are four minion races, each of which have their own colour and abilities:
Browns are melee fighters Blues can revive defeated minions and swim Reds throw fireballs at enemies, can put out fires and are immune to fire attacks, Greens backstab enemies and can clear poisonous gas and plants.
Minions are summoned from the spawning pits found scattered throughout the game. The player needs to pay life-force, which can be gained by killing creatures, like large bugs, to summon minions. At the start of the game only five minions can be summoned at once; as the game progresses this can increase to a maximum of fifty. In addition to controlling minions, the player can sacrifice them at altars of blood and magic to restore the Overlord's health or mana. Once a forge is acquired, they can be used to imbue weapons and armor to increase the Overlord's abilities.
The player begins in an old ruined tower that has been plundered of its magical artifacts and acts as a central hub for the player. As the stolen tower objects are recovered, new rooms and spells become available for use, and the Overlord's maximum health and mana increase. The player also needs to recover the blue, green, and red minion hives to summon the respective minions. The player can customize the tower with a variety of visual items such as banners and statues; the available visual items differ depending on in-game actions. Armour and weapons can be purchased or improved in the forge. Most defeated enemy types appear as opponents in the dungeon, an arena where the Overlord can fight them again (excluding bosses such as heroes and one-of-a-kind beasts).
While the game claims that the Overlord is evil, the quests show him being more of an anti-hero. It tracks how corrupt the Overlord is in accomplishing his goals. During the game the Overlord is tempted by each of the deadly sins while trying to kill their corresponding heroes. The player's choices will influence your corruption level, either raising or lowering it. Slaughtering inoffensive townsfolk, stealing gold and other activities can increase the corruption level. The corruption level changes the way townsfolk treat the Overlord and will also change his appearance, a system similar to Fable. As corruption increases, the Overlord's armour will become more devilish with horns protruding out of the back, shoulders, elbows and knees and he will acquire a black aura. The corruption level determines which game ending the player sees and which high-level spells they can cast.
The game offers several multiplayer modes, Slaughter, Survival, and Pillage. Slaughter pits two Overlords against each other in a head-to-head combat with potentially hundreds of minions. In Survival, two Overlords team up against large armies of enemies. Pillage is a competition in which two Overlords and their minions compete to see who can pillage and plunder the most gold in a selected amount of time. The Xbox 360 version provides voice chat over Xbox Live. In the PlayStation 3 version of Raising Hell, the game features a mini-map on screen to help the player navigate through the game's world.
Synopsis Characters
The player takes the role of the Overlord, the game's silent protagonist/anti-hero, whose motivations and personality are left for the player to determine. At the outset of the game, tiny gremlin-like minions pry open his coffin and revive him. In rapid succession, his minions shove him into armour, name him successor to the previous Overlord, and task him with slaying his predecessor's murderers, the Seven Heroes. In the intervening years, the Seven Heroes each fell prey to one of the Seven Deadly Sins. Despite recalling nothing of his past, the Overlord begins to rebuild the tower at the suggestion of his adviser Gnarl. As the new Overlord, the protagonist holds absolute sway over his minions. Complementing this power, he possesses some proficiency using axes, swords, and maces. Through his tower, the Overlord can channel magical energies capable of wanton destruction or defence.
Although the titular Overlord is the protagonist, the game relies heavily on Gnarl, the oldest minion, to advise and guide the player. For the majority of the game, he remains by the Tower Heart relaying information and reminders since "there are evil deeds that need doing". He acts as narrator for the plot. Eventually, the Overlord's mistress comes to reside in the tower. She redecorates the rooms and upgrades the minions and the tower as well as shares opinions on certain actions. Rose is the first potential mistress rescued from bandits. Despite the Overlord's menace and actions, she is initially strong-willed, cheery and unafraid of the Overlord's minions.Rose: ...adorable little cherubs The other potential mistress is Rose's sister Velvet whose evil tendencies are less ambiguous than her sister's and dresses far more provocatively. She repeatedly ask for presents and lusts for the Overlord and shows a distinct lack of empathy or grief over her fiancé's murder at the hands of the Overlord.Rose:...and now he's dead. I can see why you might be emotional but stay out of my business!Velvet: Him? Oh, he was over compensating, believe me. I was about to walk out on him when he locked me up in here. And now you've come along, my black knight.
The "seven heroes" are corrupt themselves, each with a trait representing one of the seven deadly sins:
The Halfling leader Melvin Underbelly has become gluttonous and as a result, morbidly obese – he has taken to sending bands of armed also obese halflings to steal food from neighbouring Spree to feed his unending hunger.Wizard: Have a roast pig Melvin, have two... you're a hero now! - I think she likes you Sir William, if you want to slip away with her I won't tell anyone! - That Jewel had everything, turned out what she wanted was what other people had! - Have a rest Oberon, heroes need their rest! - Hard to see what you love taken away isn't it Kahn? When reason is gone, nothing is left but madness! - Goldo you can have all the gold you ever wanted, my friend! No one would refuse a hero! The mightiest Elven warrior of Evernight Forest, Oberon Greenhaze is in a constant sleep and his sloth has caused his nightmares to haunt the forest. His apathy allowed the dwarves to invade Evernight and kill or enslave most of the elves, but they were in turn driven out when the creatures of his nightmares became real. The ruler of Heaven's Peak and Velvet's fiancé, Sir William the Black shows strong lust towards unorthodox sexual interests such as having relations with a succubus, and indulges in decadent parties with a secret cult. The presence of the succubus has caused a plague of undeath in the fortified city. The Dwarf King Goldo Golderson of the Golden Hills has become overly greedy and desires wealth over all the other aspects of life where he has even forced the remaining elves to mine for it. His paranoia that his riches will be stolen has led him to heavily militarise the entire dwarven empire – he himself rides a war-like steam roller named "Rollie". Envy drives Jewel the Thieving Hero to steal anything valuable even though she cares nothing for possessions and Kahn the Warrior is very protective of her and is driven wild with wrath whenever anything appears to threaten her. Both of them command the bandits and beholders from the Ruborian Desert. The Previous Overlord, having possessed the body of the Wizard (who was the founder of the group of heroes), shows pride in his work, which involves deception and an urge for supreme power, and is the game's main antagonist.
Plot The game begins after the events of Dark Legend where Gnarl and the Brown minions awaken the Overlord from his tomb. From here they suit him in his armour and proclaim him Overlord in his old and dilapidated tower – the previous Overlord having been killed by heroes, ready to reconquer the lands. The Overlord first turns to the Mellow Hills, where the Halflings and their leader Melvin Underbelly are using the townspeople of Spree and Red minions as slave labour. The Overlord storms the Halfling Homes, slaying Melvin and reclaiming the Reds and Spree (to the peasants’ delight or disgust depending on whether the Overlord returns their stolen food). Castle Spree however has come under attack by bandits. After flushing them out, the castle mistress Rose offers her service to the Overlord.
At Evernight Forest, the roots of a tree where Oberon Greenhaze sleeps cover the Elves' home, nearly extinct after being ransacked by Dwarves. The Green minions are found and Oberon is slain. The Elves' sacred statue, however, has been stolen by the Dwarves, angering Jewel, the Thieving Hero, who wanted to steal it for herself. At Heaven's Peak the town is overrun by zombies and demons. Here the Overlord gains the Blue minions. At the town's inn, it is discovered that town leader Sir William the Black had fallen for a Succubus, calling off his wedding to Rose's sister Velvet. Killing Sir William in Angelis Keep, Velvet offers her services to the Overlord and he must choose between her and Rose.