It was the year 2008 when for the first time we started talking about Kingdom Under Fire II, a title MMORPG whose task is to get out of the usual canonical schemes, introducing components RTS. Certainly an ambitious title, but which soon found itself in oblivion, both for the 11 years of development, and for beta - released in Korea and Russia - with a disastrous outcome. The title, under the guidance of Publisher Gameforge, after a long gestation period, comparable to the sum of the duration of the two great wars, has a release date and will see the light also in the old continent.
November 14 will be the date on which the Blueside servers will open the doors of Kingdom Under Fire II.
We had the chance to fly to Germany, at the Reichenstein castle, to witness the world premier of the title and finally try Kingdom Under Fire II. The day began with a conference where the developers and the Publisher talked to us about the title, stressing over and over again the long duration of the development and that before presenting it again to the market, they wanted to wait to reach a satisfactory general level. . To do this Gameforge had to invest around $ 80 million, a not exorbitant figure if you take into account the 10 years of development, but completely unjustified if you look at the final quality of the video game, but we will talk about this later. During the conference, the developers also introduced a new class of warrior, adding it to the four already present. At the end of the conference, the truly evocative location gave birth to medieval themed role-playing games to be performed both individually and in company, forcing us to go into every corner of the castle, in order to visit it and be amazed by its immense beauty and the spectacular nature of the surrounding landscape.
After all of this we had the chance to finally try Kingdom Under Fire II for more than an hour.
During the test we got to start the game from scratch, creating our character and learning all the fighting techniques necessary to better progress our adventure. Our character creation editor is really well done, full of options that will allow us to customize every aspect of our hero to our liking. We have a total of 5 classes available, which differ in type of attacks, weapons and sex:
- Gunslinger: a human warrior capable of wielding swords and firearms;
- Spellsword: a dark elf able to use single-handed swords and to cast powerful spells that can also freeze enemies;
- Berseker: the most fascinating class, it is a tank capable of wiping out entire hordes of enemies with a single swipe of his sword;
- Cleaning: an extremely fast elf, able to unleash close attacks using two swords or ranged attacks using the bow;
- Elementalist: a very versatile and powerful sorceress, able to exploit the surrounding nature to create powerful magical attacks.
Kingdom Under Fire II begins with a short introductory movie where he explains that a tough war is looming on the continent of Bersia, which has brought the population to their knees. Our hero, a Gunslinger, will take on the role of the captain, and the title immediately throws us into the middle of a fierce battle. Basically we will have two types of attack available, a basic one that can be used by pressing the left mouse button, and a special one that can be used by pressing the right mouse button. Like any self-respecting role-playing game, we have up to 16 slots available to equip our skills that we will unlock with the increase in the level of our hero. The first 8 slots can be used using the numbers on the keyboard, while the others we will have to select them with the mouse cursor. We will continue for several minutes to move and repel the enemies until two shady figures appear, who will kill our sovereign decreeing the end of the war. A powerful magic will destroy what was left of Bersia Castle, leaving us helpless and unconscious. When we wake up we will find the kingdom completely reduced to rubble, our task will be to repel the enemies still remaining in the area and in the meantime help the needy population still alive.
During the game we will be able to accept and carry out multiple missions at a time. There will be a special menu where we can keep track of all ongoing quests. At each completion of a mission, as a reward, in addition to money we will have an object that can be a consumable or a component of our armor. Each recovered item will be placed in the inventory. It is quite well organized, the problem is that in the version we tested, the texts of the objects were localized in Korean and therefore difficult to understand. Along the map there will also be merchants where you can buy various items, or blacksmiths where you can forge your own weapon. Kingdom Under Fire II also has its own shop, where we can buy items with the money on our credit card. They are simply skins, because the BlueSide title will not be a Pay to win.
During our test we were able to try, even if for a short time, the RTS component, which however turns out to be a bit sketchy and not very thorough. We can switch from third person view to isometric view at any time, just press the appropriate button. Our army will be divided into 7 troops, divided between close and ranged attack. Each troop will have their own experience and will level up as the story progresses. In Kingdom Under Fire II we will be able to control each troop individually and give him different orders. We can also make our garrison assume both the attack and defense position: the latter extremely useful when we will be attacked from a distance or from above by a dragon. Once the orders are given, we can return to the third-person view and give a hand to our troops.
We found the gameplay formula particularly fun and different from the usual MMORPGs that now know stale. The main problem of Kingdom Under Fire II is the technical sector, really obsolete and poorly maintained, even if the settings are particularly inspired. The title was announced in 2008, but remained firmly anchored in that year. The textures are of low quality and the environments are poor in detail, often resulting bare. The polygonal models of the characters are nothing special: the protagonists are slightly more detailed, while the NPCs that will surround the environments are all too similar to each other, without presenting a good variety. In addition to this, during our test we found noticeable drops in framerate, turning out to be unstable, as well as looming over several micro freezers during our game. Unfortunately, we don't know what hardware the PC we tested it with had, and so we can't blame the machine or the title itself. It is said that the black dress does not make the monk, and often it is the same in video games, in fact there are titles from the technical sector that are not excellent, but which know how to conquer the player, both for the gameplay and for the audio component. Kingdom Under Fire II, in the version we tested, also flaws in this. The title of BlueSide presents, or rather does not present an audio sector, The only noises we will hear, in addition to the dialogues, will be those of our own footsteps. Enemies, explosions and weapons will not make any noise, thus ruining the immersion in the game world. We don't know if this was a bug of the tested version or not, but judging by the upcoming release date, it may not be.
Kingdom User Fire II will be available starting November 14 and will adopt the Buy to Play formula, that is, you will pay for the game once and you will be able to play forever. There will be no monthly subscription plans. Gameforge will make three game packs available:
- Hero Package: 29,99 €;
- Emperor Package: 49,99 €;
- War God Package: 99,99 €.
Each pack will have different in-game content, such as skins and weapons to be used within the world created by the BlueSide team.
Kingdom Under Fire II tries to rejuvenate a bit the formula of the now antiquated MMORPG, introducing real-time strategy techniques typical of RTS titles. The formula proposed by the guys of BlueSide is well done and fun, even if both the two formulas are a bit stale and will surely get bored over time. Unfortunately, the title lacks in several respects as regards the technical sector. The overall quality of the game has remained anchored in the now distant 2008, when Kingdom Under Fire II was first announced. The sound is perhaps the biggest flaw in the title. On the other hand, the Buy to Play formula is interesting, without forcing people to take out monthly subscriptions, which is typical of MMORPGs and which is becoming increasingly popular also in other forms of entertainment.
Kingdom Under Fire II will be available starting November 14th and in the meantime you can make the Pre Order directly on the official website.
► Kingdom Under Fire II is an RTS-Strategy-MMORPG game developed by Blueside Phantagram and published by Gameforge for PC, the video game was released on 14/11/2019
