Jagged Alliance 3 announced for 2011

By Robert Purchese Published 10 March, 2010

Turn-based RPG series changes hands.

Acclaimed turn-based role-playing series Jagged Alliance is to return after more than 10 years.

Independent German publisher bitComposer has acquired full IP rights and plans to release a third game sometime in 2011. There are no other details to be had.

Previous licence owner Strategy First took control after Jagged Alliance 2 was released in 1999, but only managed to put out an expansion pack and a DS port.

Jagged Alliance 3D and Jagged Alliance 3 were both eventually canned.

Jagged Alliance is set in the near future and puts you in charge of a group of mercenaries.

The Gold Edition of Jagged Alliance 2 can be downloaded from Get Games for £12.99. Good old Games has JA1 and JA2 for $9.99 apiece. The expansions cost $5.99.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (23) Latest comment 2 years ago

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  • Venkman90 #1 2 years ago

    pleasebeturnbasedpleasebeturnbased...

    And for the love of god not to far in the future.

  • Irien #2 2 years ago

    German devs usually don't mind doing games with a little more detail and a little less pace, so hopefully we've got some chance of the JA3 we'd like to play!

    Of course, when they deliver that, it'll probably get pasted in reviews for not being pretty/slick/action-y enough, and requiring too much micromanagement!

  • udat #3 2 years ago

    Jagged Alliance 2 was one of the best games I ever played. In fact, it might be the only game of that type that was as good as, or possibly even better, than UFO/Xcom.

  • mkreku #4 2 years ago

    Jagged Alliance 2 is one of the only two turn based games I've ever liked. The other one is Silent Storm.

    Why wasn't there a Silent Storm 2 by the way? That game rocked.

  • Moribundman #5 2 years ago

    JA2 was pretty much perfect for the time. Similar to Fallout in some respects but much more action oriented. Got it on steam a while back, and with slight improvements to the graphics and a tweaked interface it would still be perfect.

    Did see some god-awful screenies doing the rounds for one of those projects, and didn't "Jagged Edge" or something like that come out recently? That had a lot of similarities to the JA series mercenary-wise but was utter arse gravy.

    To make a PROPER quality sequel they'd ideally want to bring across a) the characters and/or voice actors from the first 2 (and a half) games and b) the sense of humour. Not so sure with this moving from Canadian devs to German ones, but hope they can pull it off!

  • SAMagic #6 2 years ago

    "Your ass is on my platter, snapperhead!"
    (My username is serived from the speaker of the above :)

    I really, really, really hope something comes to light of this as it's been so long coming. Jagged Alliance is clearly one of those games that, despite the graphics, really shines through with its pure gameplay mechanics and mercs.

    This is a series that got the voice actor of Barney the Dinosaur as an explosives expert for god's sake.

  • MrChuckles #7 2 years ago

    My fave moments in JA2:

    Fidel shooting at someone and then being outnumbered... Oh, better move him away..'No, me kill dis man'...Wtf, he won't retreat! He's so awesome...

    Then having Grunty and Buns flirting with each other when killing people, so wrong.. hehe...

    Best characterisation and voices since Megalomania...

    As Peter Venkman says.... PLEASE BE TURN BASED!

  • etherfiend #8 2 years ago

    Venkman90 speaks the truth. Stick with turn-based, please.

  • Murton #9 2 years ago

    Great to see that JA3 is back on the cards, I'm hoping for basically more of the same but with modern improvements in all areas. The concept of Jagged Alliance was perfect in my opinion and needs no alteration.

    Been a good couple of weeks for games, Civ 5 is looking real tasty and now we get JA3, the only thing that could make this better is someone picking up XCOM again.

  • Skurmedel #10 2 years ago

    Yay, I never played these when they came out but bought on GoG. The only thing really missing is multiplayer.

  • Esapekka #11 2 years ago

    I salivate in anticipation!

    Jagged Alliance 2 was and still is, with 1.13 patch/mod, one of the greatest games ever.
    Those mercs with few lines of dialogue have more character than dozens of npcs from modern RPGs.

  • Ocrovastru #12 2 years ago

    I've got Jagged Alliance 2 on my netbook. I must play it through at least twice a year. Its still utterly brilliant today!

    However, as far as this news goes....I wont hold my breath. Its been scheduled far too many times for my liking.

  • the_mtfr #13 2 years ago

    Micro Forte, devs of Fallout Tactics, would make an awesome developer for this game. It could still be 2D like Fallout Tactics, with an excellent amount of details and art style it can be better than a 3D game. That would move the development from Canada to Australia via Germany :D
    Edited by 1 at 10/03/10 @ 13:35

  • weirdcitizen #14 2 years ago

    Great news, I hope they manage to capture the essence of the second game and keep all the layers of gameplay. I'm actually quite surprised (happily so) the IP was still on some dev's wishlist.

  • figgis #15 2 years ago

    Silent Storm was pretty good until the fucking mech suits got involved.

  • udat #16 2 years ago

    Figgis +1. They ruined that game.

  • KillerMonkey #17 2 years ago

    This will fail. It won't have the dark humour of the first game. It's made by Germans. It will only disappoint. Germans should be in the business of making simulators, not games.

  • KillerMonkey #18 2 years ago

    Then there is some hope left..

  • cairbre1977 #19 2 years ago

    Im getting this. I tihnk all of us who moan about there being no more turn based games need to buy the ones that are released to show there is still a makret out there.

  • sneetch #20 2 years ago

    @KillerMonkey
    This will fail. It won't have the dark humour of the first game. It's made by Germans. It will only disappoint. Germans should be in the business of making simulators, not games.

    That's some damn fine racism there, KillerMonkey.

    Looking forward to this either way, missed Jagged Alliance 2 but loved Silent Storm and this was going to use the same engine, anyone know if that's still the case?

  • KillerMonkey #21 2 years ago

    I know, wasn't 100% serious, but still. I've just never been into German games. Sacred, anything from Crytek, even Settlers. Gothic/Risen is an exception though. I somewhat enjoyed those.

  • EmiliasHorse #22 2 years ago

    Fantastic news, loved JA2. I remember it being bloody hard but when I re-installed it last year for a waltz down memory lane I was smashed in the face at how unforgiving it was.....great fun though.

  • Ged42 #23 2 years ago

    Jesus K. Rist \o/