| Wrath Unleashed | |
| Developer: | The Collective |
| Publisher: | LucasArts |
| Director: | Gary Priest |
| Producer: | Douglas Hare Cordy Rierson |
| Designer: | James Farley Garrett Smith |
| Artist: | Daniel Mycka Brian Horton |
| Programmer: | Nathan Hunt William Feng Chen Mike Singleton |
| Composer: | Jack Wall |
| Genre: | Strategy |
| Modes: | Single player, multiplayer |
| Platforms: | PlayStation 2, Xbox |
Wrath Unleashed is a strategy game for the PlayStation 2 and the Xbox created by The Collective and published by LucasArts in 2004.
Wrath Unleashed is a chess-like game that combines strategy with combat. In the game, the player chooses a god and attempts to claim the territory of another god with their army of mythical creatures, which move over a "board" of hexagonal spaces (each space representing a type of terrain). When two opposing troops occupy the same hexagonal space, gameplay shifts to an arena, where the troops must battle to the death for the right to occupy the space. The goal of the game is to position troops over spaces which contain the enemy's temples.
The characters in Wrath Unleashed are divided into Light (good) and Darkness (evil), as well as Order (intelligence, thought) and Chaos (combat, battle). Each faction of characters has the power of a specific element. All playable characters are able to heal their troops, teleport troops across the board, and destroy nearby enemies.
A nameless narrator (voiced by Mako Iwamatsu) introduces the conflict: "In the beginning, there was only darkness. Then light shown in the void, and a new world was born. A realm forged from the elemental forces of earth, wind, water, and fire. The nexus of an eternal war waged between the forces of light and darkness, between chaos and order, which destroyed the world in a mighty cataclysm. Unto this broken realm came the overlords: Beautiful Aenna, Goddess of the Waters. Steadfast purity of crashing waves and thundering waterfalls. Fiery Epothos, Warrior of the Rising Sun. Volatile guardian of the sacred flame. Devious Durlock, Master of Metals, and Lord of Stone! Keeper of the secrets of the earth! And Wicked Helamis! Queen of Storms and Chaos, mother of hurricanes, leaving havoc and destruction in her wake. Now the mightiest of the overlords prepare for the ultimate confrontation, the time has come for the Wrath of the Gods to be UNLEASHED!"
The game features campaigns for each of the four characters, at varying difficulties, following their story of achieving domination of the realm.
LucasArts acquired the publishing rights to Wrath Unleashed (known then as Wrath) in 2002.[1]
Wrath Unleashed received "mixed or average reviews" on both platforms according to the review aggregation website Metacritic. Star Dingo of GamePro said of the Xbox version, "If either half of Wrath Unleashed had been more fully formed, the game would have been easy to recommend, but as it stands, half a fighting game and half a strategy game does not make a whole game. Seek out for a much more well-blended mix of brainpower and reflex."[2]