This was when 1C Company announced that King's Bounty 2 was in development and would come to the Playstation 4. The day is August 15, 2019: exactly five years and one day since Dark Side was released. It's hours upon hours' worth of entertainment and almost limitless replay value. Well, four plus an expansion (Crossworlds). All in all, this is four completely new King's Bounty games. There's also 2012's King's Bounty: Warriors of the North and the latest entry in the franchise, 2014's King's Bounty: Dark Side. No-they released King's Bounty: Armored Princess in 2009, and its expansion, King's Bounty: Crosworlds in 2010. ![]() In addition to this, Katauri and 1C Company did not stop there. Combine its refinement of the classic formula with many new features and breathtaking music like this track and you get a bona fide formula for success. You had the return of so many classic mechanics: the ability to choose your starting class, the troop mechanic, the exploration, the leadership stat, and so much more! In addition, King's Bounty: The Legend featured dozens of hours of replay, compared to the original (which can easily be completed within several hours). To any old fan of the original King's Bounty, it was simply unbelievable how faithful this release was to the original. Somewhere along the way, in the mid-2000s, these guys acquired the rights to the King's Bounty name-and what a great thing this turned out to be, because throughout the late 2000s to early 2010s, they spearheaded the revival of King's Bounty! This revival started with 2008's King's Bounty: The Legend. Specifically, publishers 1C Company (they also developed Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark which is another SRPG game that you may enjoy) and developers Katauri Interactive, headed by Dmitry Gusarov. Surely, it'd merely be a one-off, especially now that New World Computing was no more. After all, there was only one King's Bounty game, and it was released back in 1990. With the dissolution of New World Computing, it would at first appear that there would be no new King's Bounty games. The unfortunate bankruptcy of New World Computing also poignantly helps explain the history behind the next section of King's Bounty's history. I don't want to focus too much on HoMM here since it has its entire own subreddit ( r/homm), but I needed to mention it here because its history is very much intertwined with that of King's Bounty. As a result, a different company's been developing the newer HoMM games. Unfortunately, the company had to file for chapter 11 bankruptcy. However, the final one to be developed by New World Computing was Heroes of Might and Magic 4 back in 2003. In total, there are seven Heroes of Might and Magic games. ![]() Any fan of the King's Bounty games will probably enjoy HoMM, and vice versa. Aside from this, though, these games are worthy sequels to the original: the combat is virtually identical, the graphics are improved, there's the similar troop mechanic to the original King's Bounty, and so much more. The main way in which these games differed from KB was that there was an emphasis on city-building, which outright didn't exist in the original King's Bounty. In many ways, this series could be accurately described as the spiritual successor to King's Bounty. Speaking of which.Įventually, New World Computing began developing the Heroes of Might and Magic games, beginning with 1995's Heroes of Might and Magic: A Strategic Quest. This game played nothing at all like King's Bounty: The Conqueror's Quest, but elements from it, most notably its name, helped influence eventual later efforts by van Caneghem and his company, New World Computing. ![]() One of these games was the original Might and Magic, released back in 1986. Jon van Caneghem, the mastermind and programmer behind it all, had actually released three games prior to King's Bounty. Importantly, it was arguably one of the first ever SRPGs, even if it was quite different from its Japanese contemporaries such as Fire Emblem 1 and Langrisser 1.Īlthough somewhat obscure in this day and age-after all, it IS a 30-year old game at this point-it nonetheless has a small cult following who absolutely adore the game. Although primitive by today's standards, the original King's Bounty was a notable blend between adventuring in a high-fantasy setting with turn-based tactical gameplay. The very first release of this game was for the MS-DOS, but it was remade for the Sega Genesis in 1991 ( I did a review of this one) and the PC-98 in 1994. In 1990, King's Bounty: The Conqueror's Quest was the first entry in the series. ![]() and what better time to do so, than when King's Bounty 2 is fresh on the horizon? Anyway, let's get to it! My aim here is to outline the entire history of the franchise. Because it's possible that not everyone finding out about this subreddit has played EVERY King's Bounty game, I wanted to make this post.
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