Lands of Lore III is an action role-playing game created in 1999 by Westwood Studios and published by Electronic Arts. It is a follow-up game to Lands of Lore: Guardians of Destiny and the third game in the Lands of Lore series. The game uses a first-person view and features fast-paced combat. Players can join four different groups to choose which quests to complete. The game was first announced in February 1998. After it was released, it received mixed reviews from players.

Gameplay

The game is played from the player's perspective. When using melee weapons, the player fights like in a hack-and-slash game. When using spells or ranged weapons, the game acts like a first-person shooter. It includes common features of role-playing games (RPGs), such as guilds the player can join, the ability to use both weapons and magic, and access to multiple worlds connected by portals. Using spells uses up magic points from the player's limited supply. Over time, both magic points and health points slowly return to normal, as in earlier games in the series.

The player can collect weapons, armor, and items like food. There is an inventory screen to view collected items, but the player can also open the inventory bag without leaving the main game screen. As time passes, the player's hunger level decreases. Eating food is the only way to restore hunger. If hunger is low, the player cannot recover magic points or health points over time, and their combat abilities are weakened. Using abilities helps the player level up in the guild that teaches that ability. Higher levels unlock more skills.

There are four guilds: a warriors' guild, a magicians' guild, a clerics' guild, and an illegal thieves' guild. Each guild has its own quests, a familiar (a creature that helps the player), and a guild building with shops, guild leaders, and sometimes training areas. The player character, named Copper, must join at least one guild but can join others as well.

Plot

The story happens after the events of Guardians of Destiny, but the exact time is not stated. After Belial is defeated, the Draracle no longer has a purpose in the human world and returns to the realm of the gods. Copper LeGré, the son of Eric and the fourth in line to inherit the throne, sees his father and two half-brothers killed by a rift hound during Copper’s first boar hunt. Copper’s soul is torn from his body. Because he is the only survivor, he must find his soul and prove he did not cause his family’s deaths. As the only heir to the Kingdom of Gladstone, many people believe he is responsible for their deaths. Copper is also the child of an illegal relationship between his father and a Dracoid barmaid, making him a half-breed. He must also find answers to stop new rifts from appearing across the Lands.

While exploring one of the rifts, Copper meets a remnant of the Draracle, who explains that the mirror keeping the Shining Path sealed between worlds has broken. This has allowed other worlds to leak into the Lands, causing corruption that will eventually destroy them. Copper’s soul is in one of these rift worlds, but he cannot return to it unless the mirror is fixed, which would close the rifts. Copper must travel through five portal worlds to recover lost pieces of the mirror. His mission is to save his soul and protect his home, but King Richard, who rules the Lands, does not believe the rifts are a serious threat and offers little help. Jakel, the Draracle’s assistant, also thinks searching for the mirror’s pieces is a mistake.

After recovering most of the mirror’s pieces, Copper returns to find that Gladstone has been destroyed by the corruption from other worlds. King Richard has fled into the forests, leaving Lord Jeron (called Geron in Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos) to care for the remaining people. Richard, who is sick and hurt, finally understands the danger of the broken mirror and gives Copper a document granting him the tools and money he needs. However, Jeron refuses to accept the document, thinking Richard is not well enough to make such decisions. Copper finds the last piece of the mirror, but Jakel stops him from returning directly to the Draracle Caves, where the mirror must be rebuilt.

Copper travels to the Draracle Caves and confronts Jakel, who warns that restoring the mirror will destroy the caves and prevent gods from visiting the human world again. Copper believes the rifts must be fixed to save humanity and fights Jakel to the death. He restores the mirror, which reunites him with his soul. As Jakel predicted, the caves collapse.

The story skips ahead several months. Gladstone has been rebuilt, and King Richard has recovered his health, but Copper has not been seen since the mirror was restored, and he is thought to be dead. The story then returns to the moment the mirror was fixed, revealing Copper survived the cave collapse. He later meets Jeron, who had stolen the Ruby of Truth and was fleeing Gladstone, and kills him.

The game ends with a flashback showing that King Richard taught Copper how to hunt boar before the hunt at the beginning of the story. Why Copper never returned to Gladstone and how the line of succession is handled after his disappearance remain unanswered, leaving room for a possible fourth game.