Gaming Nexus had the opportunity to sit down with Stardock’s Brad Wardell to talk about the upcoming release of Elemental: War of Magic.

The deep amount of character customization feels like something out of a big fantasy RPG, instead of a strategy game. Can you explain how character building influences the rest of the game?

Well in most strategy games it’s about your kingdom or your empire or your civilization, but Elemental is about you. The first question you’re asking in the game is who are you? When you choose a faction, it’s not just you the player choosing, it’s you the sovereign and sorcerer choosing which faction to support, to try to help them take over the world or what have you. The spell books you choose matter a lot—the game is called War of Magic after all—but you can also choose to be a warrior to. You can also assign talents to suit your personal strategy. For instance you can load your sovereign up with a lot of equipment abilities at the start at the sacrifice of long-term potential in other areas, which is pretty viable as a strategy if you can get away with it. How you design your sovereign has a great effect on how the game is going to play.

Read the full interview at Gaming Nexus.