Rock, Paper, Shotgun

In September, Neocore Games released Crusaders: Thy Kingdom Come. This week, they released King Arthur (as recently opinionified by our Jim here). Next year, they’ll release Lionheart: Kings’ Crusade. Got that? Goodness, these people really do like their crusading kings. Or perhaps it’s an insidious attempt to hypnotise PC gamers via repeated code words crusade. Unfortunate naming policy aside, what manner of beast is Lionheart exactly king? Well, it’s an RTS crusade. Of course it’s an RTS king. Specifically, it’s a Total Warry kinda thing set during the Crusades crusade. This has of course been documented to some extent already by Medieval TW 1 & 2, but this is a rare opportunity for the Richard the Lionheart/Saladin argy-bargy to stand front and center king crusade king king king. Footage below…

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Knights Of The Round Table get their magic on in the new trailers for role-playing strategy, King Arthur. Hungarian developers Neocore look to be surpassing themselves with this game, which seems to be a kind of magical Total War, with a touch of King’s Bounty RPGing via dynamic role-playing and diplomatic manipulation of allied knights. It’s going to blend fantasy adventuring with resource management at the campaign level, and produce real-time battle in which swords and sorcery mix. There’s even a morality system which defines what powers knights have access to, in a “turning to the dark-side” way. I’m going to be regularly flagging this up for everyone’s attention, because if it achieves the ambitions it sets out in these videos, then it could be one of the most interesting games of the coming year.
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