Expeditions: Conquistador

Lore & Background

Expeditions: Conquistador was born from a university project that produced a 2D turn-based XNA demo in three weeks. That demo evolved into Conquistador Mobile, a gamebook-style strategy adventure for Windows Phone 7 released in April 2012. In April 2012, the developers began building Expeditions: Conquistador from scratch as a 3D turn-based role-playing game, releasing it on May 30, 2013. The core development team consisted of 8 to 10 full-time developers, supplemented by freelancers and interns.

The developers cited King's Bounty as an inspiration for the game's overall structure, while combat drew from Heroes of Might and Magic, the first two Fallout games, and Dungeons & Dragons. Troop management was inspired by Rainbow Six and X-COM. The team chose the Age of Exploration setting because the Spanish conquest of the Americas was underused in video games and offered rich conflict and narrative potential. They selected the Spanish perspective as it seemed more exciting, philosophically complex, and fresher than the English perspective.

The game features a player character who does not participate in combat, instead possessing five non-combat stats: tactics, diplomacy, healing, hunting, and leadership. These stats are assigned during character creation and do not level up, though in-game events and squad bonuses can modify them. The player assembles an expedition of ten followers from pre-made characters across five Spanish classes (soldier, scout, hunter, doctor, scholar) and can recruit six native classes during the game. Combat is turn-based on a hex grid, with the player deploying up to six party members.

Reader's Guide

Expeditions: Conquistador received generally favorable reviews according to Metacritic. Patrick Hancock of Destructoid praised the game's writing and battle system but criticized its difficulty, noting that it could wear a player down and create a feeling of not progressing, with the early game being particularly punishing as a trial by fire. The game's Kickstarter campaign raised $77,247 against a $70,000 goal, demonstrating community interest in a historically grounded tactical RPG with branching narratives. Logic Artists continued the series with Expeditions: Viking in 2017 and Expeditions: Rome in 2022. THQ Nordic acquired the Expeditions series intellectual property in November 2018. The game stands as an early example of a crowdfunded historical tactical RPG that emphasized exploration as both a mechanical and narrative theme, offering players meaningful choices that could alter the course of history within its alternate-history framework.

Did You Know?

• The game was partially funded through a Kickstarter campaign that raised $77,247 against a $70,000 goal.
• The player character does not participate in combat and has five non-combat stats that do not level up.
• Combat takes place on a hex grid with up to six expedition members deployed.