Video: 11 minutes of exclusive Kingdom Under Fire 2 gameplay
What is this PC and PS4 MMO and why should you care?
It's the MMO that's taken six years build and it's nearly here for PC and PS4. It's Kingdom Under Fire 2.
Did you spot it on stage at Sony's E3 press conference? Of course you didn't. It was in the free-to-play reel. But there's a lot to this game - much more than a business model.
South Korean developer Blueside recorded 11 minutes of exclusive gameplay footage, taken from the South East Asian beta, for Eurogamer. I talk Wesley Yin-Poole through it, adding what I know about the series, in the video below. It shows three players and their armies taking on a level 28 raid. They die a few times - this obviously isn't easy stuff.
Kingdom Under Fire is an MMO that combines action and strategy. You are a Dynasty Warriors style super-warrior with big, army-killing powers. You are also a leader of an army who will have to direct said army around a battlefield, tackling other armies, boss monsters and super-warriors like you. In between battles you level up, gaining more abilities, better troops and better equipment.
Gluing the whole game together is a kind of overarching struggle for territory between you and the other players - and presumably some AI baddies, but I haven't seen this in action.
Kingdom Under Fire 2's release has been pushed back from what we'd previously heard. It was expected on PC in South East Asia already, but open beta is still rolling out there. Release is expected this sometime this autumn, Blueside informed me.
As for the West: the PC version was pencilled for release mid-to-late this year. The plan now is to have a closed beta for European and North Americans between late summer and autumn, and to set an open beta schedule after that. A release date will depend on the outcome of all that. I wouldn't expect it on PC, here, this year.
"We haven't decided the release date of PS4 version yet," Blueside added, but the plan is to have a closed PS4 beta this winter (some time between Dec and Feb).
