The medieval strategy game from Firefly Studios is now getting a remaster just like the first Stronghold. The demo is available on Steam starting today.
Huge castle complexes that can be besieged and defended. Arrows of fire raining down on soldiers. Knights scaling ladders. The real-time strategy game Stronghold Crusader offered all of this in 2002, in single and multiplayer.
Now the classic returns: A Definitive Edition will be released on July 15, 2025 as a major remaster with improved graphics, control and gameplay enhancements, and a bunch of fresh content.
Developer Firefly Studios doesn’t just show exactly what this looks like in the above trailer – a demo on Steam is also waiting for you.
This is in the Definitive Edition
As early as 2023, Firefly released Stronghold: Definitive Edition, a remaster of the first part of the real-time strategy series that is particularly popular in Germany. The sequel, Stronghold Crusader (rated 85 percent in GlobalESportNews11/02), is now getting almost identical updates:
- revised graphics with sharper textures and more detailed animations
- new music and voice recordings, partly with the original voice actors
- larger mapsand other “fan-requested improvements”
- two historical campaigns
- four “Sands of Time” Skirmish Pathswith a series of challenging castle sieges
- a cooperative pathfor playing with friends
- eight new unitson the side of the Bedouins
- four additional AI characterswith animated portraits
- fresh and new skirmish maps
This is how you can play Stronghold Crusader Remaster right now
The announcement of the Definitive Edition coincides with the start of the RTS Fest on Steam During this event, a variety of discounts are available in a big real-time strategy sale on Valve’s download platform. In addition, several publishers released demos of their upcoming games, such as Tempest Rising.
Stronghold Crusader: Definitive Edition is also playable in this way, with the download scheduled tobe available on January 20, 2025 from 6:00 p.m. German time Developer Firefly has not yet commented on the scope of the demo, but you should have plenty of opportunity to take a close look at the changes to graphics, sound and gameplay.
