Songs of Conquest Mobile has stopped asking for money at the door. Coffee Stain has flipped the turn-based strategy game from a paid app to free-to-try on iOS and Android, and bundled the change with what it is calling the largest content and feature update the mobile version has had since launch.
What free gets you is one campaign map and one conquest map. After that, a single non-consumable purchase unlocks the whole base game. That unlock now sits at $9.99, down from the $11.99 the app launched at, so the entry price has come down as well as moved behind a trial.
The update is mostly a list of complaints being closed
Read the patch notes and the shape of the last year's feedback is easy to reconstruct. Touch controls have been redesigned outright. The layout now adapts properly to iPhone and iPad rather than stretching one interface across both. Graphics settings are chosen per device, memory use is down and loading is faster — all of which matters for a game whose install runs close to 2 GB.
Cloud saves are more reliable, gamepads are supported, and tooltips and battle targeting have both been sharpened. None of that is glamorous. All of it is the difference between a strategy game you can actually finish a campaign in on a phone and one you abandon three maps deep.
What the base game actually is
For anyone meeting it here first: Songs of Conquest is a turn-based strategy game in the Heroes of Might and Magic tradition. You command Wielders — commanders who carry spells and troop modifiers — raise armies, gather resources, build out towns and fight hex-grid battles where positioning and unit abilities decide more than raw stack size.
The base game covers four factions across four connected campaigns set in Aerbor: Loth, a declining barony leaning into necromancy; Arleon, where the remnants of an old empire field knights alongside the Faey; Rana's frog tribes out in the marshes; and Barya's musket-carrying mercenaries. Conquest mode runs the same factions across handcrafted and randomly generated maps.
The store got bigger at the same time
This is the part to go in with your eyes open about. Alongside the price cut, three faction expansions are now sold separately as in-app purchases — Vanir, Roots and Yulan — which between them add 27 Wielders, 15 conquest maps, extra story maps, new environments and units, and a distinct tactical system for each faction. Rise Eternal, a set of four connected story missions, is another separate purchase.
So the base price came down and the catalogue above it grew. That is not a coincidence, and Coffee Stain is not dressing it up as a gift. The upside of the model is that everything is priced visibly on the storefront before you commit to any of it, and the two free maps are enough to work out whether hex-grid turn-based strategy on a touchscreen is something you actually want.
The update is live now on the App Store and Google Play.
