I took a look at the trailer for King's Bounty II, and immediately wondered why I was unfamiliar with the original King's Bounty. The trailer looks like something that I would absolutely fall in love with, which had me thinking that I could go and snag the original game so I could catch up with it by the time the sequel releases late this summer. Turns out that, nope, it's not going to happen.
King's Bounty originally released on PCs in 1991, with an eventual port to Sega Genesis. The game is widely considered to be the template for the Might and Magic series. The franchise quickly went dormant, with a few spiritual sequels arriving in the late 2000s. But King's Bounty is the first official sequel since the original '91 game.
A team at 1C Entertainment has been working on the game for several years, and believes that they have something here that will stand out in the crowded RPG marketplace. "King's Bounty II is a genre in and of itself and offers a very unique and intriguing combination of RPG elements, turn-based strategy and fantasy elements which, when combined, really stand out," says Denis Maltzev, Lead Producer.
King's Bounty offers a unique, (fairly) new open world for players to explore, with three main characters to choose from. It isn't often we see an open world game with turn-based strategy combat, so this is one that I'm going to be keeping an eye on. I'm looking forward to seeing an actual gameplay trailer, so we can start to get a feel for what the combat is going to look like.
King's Bounty II is scheduled to launch on August 24th, 2021 on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC.
