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SpellForce 2: Shadow Wars

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
SpellForce 2: Shadow Wars
SpellForce 2: Shadow Wars cover
Developers
Phenomic
Anniversary Edition THQ Nordic
Publishers
2006-2011 JoWood Productions
2011-2016 Nordic Games
2016-present THQ Nordic
Release dates
Windows April 20, 2006
Reception
Metacritic 80
Taxonomy
Monetization One-time game purchase, Expansion pack
Microtransactions None
Modes Singleplayer, Multiplayer
Pacing Real-time
Perspectives Bird's-eye view
Controls Multiple select, Point and select
Genres RPG, RTS
Themes Fantasy
Series SpellForce
SpellForce 2: Shadow Wars on HowLongToBeat
SpellForce 2: Shadow Wars on IGDB
SpellForce 2: Shadow Wars on MobyGames
SpellForce 2: Shadow Wars on Wikipedia
SpellForce
SpellForce: The Order of Dawn 2003
SpellForce 2: Shadow Wars 2006
SpellForce 2: Faith in Destiny 2012
SpellForce 2: Demons of the Past 2014
SpellForce 3 2017
SpellForce 3: Soul Harvest 2019
SpellForce 3: Fallen God 2020
SpellForce 3: Versus Edition 2020
SpellForce: Conquest of Eo 2023

SpellForce 2: Shadow Wars is a singleplayer and multiplayer bird's-eye view RPG and RTS game in the SpellForce series.

General information

GOG.com Community Discussions for game series
GOG.com Support Page
Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
Disc check (requires the CD/DVD in the drive to play)
CD key
TAGES DRM. StarForce DRM for European release[1]
Windows
Amazon.com
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Anniversary Edition
Windows
GamersGate
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Anniversary Edition
Windows
Gamesplanet logo.svg
Icon overlay.png
Anniversary Edition
Windows
GOG.com
DRM-free
Anniversary Edition
Windows
Green Man Gaming
Icon overlay.png
Anniversary Edition
Windows
Humble Store
Icon overlay.png
Anniversary Edition
Windows
Steam
Icon overlay.png
Anniversary Edition. The original Gold Edition is available as a beta branch, requiring a key from this thread for multiplayer.
Windows
GOG.com (unavailable)
DRM-free
Shadow Wars. Unavailable to new Anniversary Edition players.
Windows
GOG.com (unavailable)
DRM-free
Dragon Storm. Unavailable to new Anniversary Edition players.
Windows
A free demo version of Shadow Wars is available on Archive.org.

Version differences

The Gold Edition includes the base game and the Dragon Storm expansion.
The Anniversary Edition is an updated digital-only variant of the Gold Edition which includes native widescreen resolution support, bug fixes, additions to the free game mode, visual tweaks, and multiplayer improvements.[2]

Monetization

Type Notes
Expansion pack The expansion pack includes a new faction with its own campaign, as well as item sets, maps, and game modes.
One-time game purchase The game requires an upfront purchase to access.

DLC and expansion packs

Name Notes
Dragon Storm Included with the Gold and Anniversary Editions.
Windows

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows %USERPROFILE%\Documents\SpellForce2\
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/39550/pfx/[Note 1]

Save game data location

System Location
Windows %USERPROFILE%\Documents\SpellForce2\save\
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/39550/pfx/[Note 1]

Save game cloud syncing

System Native Notes
GOG Galaxy
OneDrive
Requires enabling backup of the Documents folder in OneDrive on all computers.
Steam Cloud

Video

Graphics settings (Anniversary Edition)
Graphics settings (Anniversary Edition)

Graphics feature State WSGF Notes
Widescreen resolution
Native support in Anniversary Edition. See Widescreen resolution for vanilla game.
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
UI does not scale with resolution and is extremely small in 4K.
Field of view (FOV)
See Widescreen resolution.
Windowed
Use SpellForce 2 Windower.
Borderless fullscreen windowed
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
Up to 16x
Anti-aliasing (AA)
FXAA and SSAA (125, 150, 175, 200)
Vertical sync (Vsync)
60 FPS and 120+ FPS
No FPS cap.
High dynamic range display (HDR)
See the glossary page for potential alternatives.
Color blind mode
Deuteranope, protanope and tritanope. Added in Anniversary Edition.

Widescreen resolution

Edit config.xml[3]
  1. Go to %USERPROFILE%\Documents\SpellForce2
  2. Edit config.xml.
  3. Change screenheight= and screenwidth to match the desired resolution, then save the changes.
  4. Set config.xml to read-only to prevent the game overwriting the changes.
  5. Open the in-game console by pressing Ctrl+] and type:
    • UI:SetCameraFOV(0.94) for 16:10
    • UI:SetCameraFOV(1.027) for 16:9

Notes

This will make the game Hor+, but the cutscenes will remain Vert-.

Input

Game settings (Anniversary Edition)
Game settings (Anniversary Edition)

Keyboard and mouse State Notes
Remapping
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
For scrolling and rotating, but no general sensitivity.
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support
Controller types

Audio

Audio settings (Anniversary Edition)
Audio settings (Anniversary Edition)

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
Surround sound
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
French
German
Italian
Polish
Russian
Spanish

Network

Multiplayer types

Type Native Players Notes
LAN play
6
Online play
6 The official Quazal service has been shut down. Attempting to create an account in the multiplayer menu fill freeze the game.

Connection types

VR support

3D modes State Notes
vorpX
G3D
User created game profile, see vorpx forum profile introduction.
Note:This profile may not work with Demons of the past.

Issues fixed

Game does not launch

Delete config.xml[4]

Delete %USERPROFILE%\Documents\SpellForce2\config.xml and try again. All settings will have to be re-applied.

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
Direct3D 9.0c
Shader Model support 3.0 [5]
Executable 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows

Middleware

Middleware Notes
Cutscenes Bink Video
Multiplayer Quazal

System requirements

Shadow Wars

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 2000, XP
Processor (CPU) Intel Pentium 4 1.5 GHz
System memory (RAM) 512 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 5 GB
Video card (GPU) Nvidia GeForce 4 Ti
128 MB of VRAM
DirectX 9.0c compatible
Sound (audio device) DirectX 9.0c compatible

Anniversary Edition

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) XP SP3, Vista SP2
Processor (CPU) 2.4 GHz Dual Core
System memory (RAM) 1 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 9 GB
Video card (GPU) Nvidia GeForce 8800
ATI Radeon HD 3870
512 MB of VRAM
DirectX 9.0c compatible
Shader model 3.0 support
Sound (audio device) DirectX 9.0c compatible


Notes

  1. 1.0 1.1 File/folder structure within this directory reflects the path(s) listed for Windows and/or Steam game data (use Wine regedit to access Windows registry paths). Games with Steam Cloud support may store data in ~/.steam/steam/userdata/<user-id>/39550/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (39550) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.

References