Is this the end for Chaos Reborn? Oh, look, zombies!

When I spoke with Julian Gollop shortly after the release of Chaos Reborn, I politely but insistently asked him not to add more spells. The game is a wonderfully self-contained gem in an era of cloying post-release support that piles on avalanches of DLC. Chucking new stuff into the mix would mess up Chaos Reborn’s fundamental concept of fewer more meaningful pieces. Do you think the original Chaos got any add-ons, new units, DLC, or update packs?

Gollop didn’t listen to me. Today’s update adds four new spells.

Two of them, bolt tower and paralyze, seem awfully shy. I ran through several games and didn’t see hide nor hair of them. I suspect one shoots bolts and the other paralyzes things. I did, however, see the Icarus tower. It’s a mechanical horse-bird with a stone tower on its back that will automatically try to shoot down incoming flying units. Now those pesky eagles aren’t so pesky.

As for the fourth spell, zombies… Well, let’s just say if I’d known Gollop was going to add zombies to Chaos Reborn, I would have asked him to hurry up and get to it. Every game needs zombies and Chaos Reborn is no exception. The zombies come in hordes, of course. When you cast the spell, you get two of them. And when one of them kills another creature, that creature becomes an undead version of itself under your control. Given that Chaos Reborn makes undead immune to nonmagical attacks — think of it as a way of having to put one in the brain — zombies that build up a little momentum are a serious threat.

The full notes for the 1.5 update are here.