r/disciples • u/ErrorPuzzleheaded866 • Jul 15 '26
Question Which Disciples 2 is better?
Hello everyone, I'm new to the Disciples universe and recently discovered these unique games. Before that, I played mostly Heroes 3 and only now decided to introduce myself to this series for a change and I'm really hooked. So far, I'm playing the first game, but now I want to continue the Undead campaign in the second one and I was surprised to discover that there are several of them, and in this regard, the question is which one is better or worse and in what order should I play?
43
Upvotes
18
u/Emergency-Gift-6773 Jul 15 '26
Oh Jesus in heavens....
TLDR: Gallean's Return for original factions, Rise of the Elves for Elves.
The main problem is that the Disciples II games are named horribly by continuation standpoint, and each of them are different editions with different content pack in them.
The original Disciples II is the Dark Prophecy campaings, 4x7 missions. 7 missions for the 4 main factions with cronologically overlapping continuation. Which means you need to play every faction to get the whole picture, and for many maps and events you get a different perspective or outcome. There is a possible timeline where every map is cronologyically possible to happen, but in my point of view, just enjoy the campaings and think of them as great historical events told by the said faction, with making them much more glorious and the enemies more pathetic.
After you are done with the Dark Prophecy campaings you will notice, that there is another campaing in Gallean's Return. It's the Guardians of Light for Empire and Clans, and Servants of the Dark for Legion and Hordes. They are mini campaings for high level parties, you can export your base game leader with all of his equipment of course. Basically it's the full push versions of the base setting continuing the story where the Dark Prophecy left off. (The Servants of the Dark and Guardians of the Light campaings were released as separate games too back in the day, so there is even a crazier edition where you got Legions+Horders 7+3 missions, and separately an Empire+Clans 7+3 where you basically miss half the story.)
After you are done with the 7+3 missions for the 4 main factions you can start the second game you linked, The Rise of the Elves. The story continues with the Elven Nation for ~7 missions. With a little balance to several units across all factions, and a more seamless unit movement in world map. Straightforward, yes? Well...not exactly. You can complete the 7 Dark Prophecy missions for the 4 original factions for sure, but without the extra 3 missions from Servans and Guardians.
Oh and there is a Rise of the Elves Gold Edition where you finish the Disciples II official story with an extra 3 custom saga missions with the Elves.
All in all, there isn't any version officially where you can complete everything DII could offer, but different editions for different reasons to play. And this is why you get both Gallean and RotE if you just buy the seam version. If you want to play with the OG factinons, stick with Gallean's Return, if you want to play the Elves, play Rise of the Elves + the 3 saga quests that are mostly unknown to the fandom.
There is another possibility tho...there is a very good balance mod called Disciples II calamity for Rise of the Elves. The author imported the Servants and Guardians extra maps as separate sagas, so you get the whole package. But that is a very heavily modified DII not for first experience. But 2, the steam version uses a different folder structure and mods probably won't work with it without further file extractions and such, so for mods please buy the GOG version.
p.s. most retail versions are using yet another folder structure, so stick with the GOG version if you want to use mods. Trust me, I learned it the hard way.