Sacred 3 is a hack and slash brawler, part of the Sacred series, despite notable differences in both gameplay and design. Deep Silver, which acquired the license to Sacred 3 from former development studio Ascaron Entertainment, announced at Gamescom that the earliest it could publish the game would be in early 2012. The game was finally released on August 1, 2014. It was met with mixed to negative reception. Another side-scrolling action brawler called Sacred Citadel acted as a prequel to the Sacred 3 story and released in 2013 to XBLA, PSN and Steam and developed by Southend Interactive.