One of the more interesting games currently in development comes from new developer Redemption Road Games, and it’s called Kingmakers. If you haven’t heard of it, the game is primarily a third-person shooter with some very light real-time strategy elements mixed in. The premise, though, is what has gotten us interested. Players go back in time 500 years to medieval England, but they’re armed with an arsenal of modern weapons. So imagine a battlefield filled with archers and cavalry, but you’re mowing them down with assault rifles and cars. The goal is to change the course of a bloody war in hopes of staving off the apocalypse in the future.
For each battle, there’s a fully real-time simulation featuring thousands of soldiers fighting at the same time. Each soldier is controlled by AI, but players can issue orders to them at any time. They can also leave that up to their petty officers, but army control includes allocating archers, swordsmen, spearmen, and cavalry, along with the ability to build fortifications.
The design looks like a ton of fun, especially since Kingmakers supports up to four players in online co-op. The idea of using assault rifles, shotguns, grenade launchers, armored SUVs, and even air strikes against a medieval army on such a grand scale is promising.
The game was originally set to launch into Early Access on October 8, but it’s being delayed at the last minute. According to the developers, they don’t want to cut any planned features for the sake of getting it out the door earlier. The statement really boils down to this: “We just need a bit more time on content polish before we feel good about charging money for it.”
The good news is, Redemption Road Games is planning a half-hour-long deep dive on Kingmakers’ gameplay very soon, along with an overview of everything it’s been working on. While the delay is a bit of a bummer, it probably helps the team too, moving it out of a pretty crowded month already.
