April 18^th, 2006 (7:54pm) - Strategy First and Akella, a major game publisher and developer based in Russia, are pleased to announce the signing of a cooperative deal for the development and worldwide publication of Disciples III: Renaissance, the next game in Strategy First’s famous Disciples franchise.

Disciples III: Renaissance is the sequel to Disciples II: Dark Prophecy; the award winning Heroic Fantasy Strategy/Role Playing game. The player takes on the role of the Lord of one of the fantastic races of Nevendaar in their enduring struggle to establish the reign of their respective god over the world. Ripe with surprises and turn-arounds, the story of the world of Nevendaar is played against a somber backdrop and shows a unique as well as stunning style that has players asking for more.

Advances in gameplay and the addition of new elements make Disciples III richer and more interesting. The visual design follows the ominous style of the Disciples world, but now all of the game environments and individual units are in real-time 3D.

Disciples III uses .dat’s in-house Virtual Dream engine, which supports all modern 3D technologies, and will initially feature 3 playable races: The Empire, The Legions of the Damned, and the Noble Elves, each with its unique Unit styles and city representation that will allow city sieges, and ending with a battle for the main fortress.

"It is a great pleasure to be working on this project with Akella. The team brings immense talent to the table and both Akella and their .dat studio partner have everything it takes to give this project the world-class polish we wanted for the Disciples franchise," said Richard Therrien, VP Product Developments for Strategy First.

"We’re glad to work in cooperation with Strategy First. We have gathered unique and talented developers and game-artists to work on the project. Akella and .dat intend to create the most exciting game in the series. While keeping the foundation of Disciples and Disciples II, we will introduce new features in order to provide gamers with more interesting gameplay and realistic graphics," said Dmitry Arkhipov, VP of Development of Akella.