Spotted at blues, its being developed by the guys who did Space Rangers.
MOSCOW, Russia, March 28, 2007 – Leading Eastern and Central European publisher 1C Company announced today that the hotly anticipated game Battle Lord (working title) has changed its name. Moving forward the project’s official title is King’s Bounty™: The Legend. The change of names does not mean any changes for release dates or the main conception behind the project.
“King’s Bounty: The Legend is an adventure with tactical turn-based battles and RPG elements unfolding in a rich fantasy world. The character and his army of companions travel across a huge continent, visiting dozens of different locations all connected to each other. While communicating with NPCs and fulfilling different tasks, the player controls their character in real-time mode and all battles take place in classic King’s Bounty mode with a strong emphasis on turn-based tactical elements”, says Ivan Magazinnikov, project lead designer.
Developed by faithful fans of the original King’s Bounty, King’s Bounty: The Legend continues the remarkable traditions of the legendary role-playing adventure. This creation of Katauri Interactive is not just a spiritual successor for the critically acclaimed series, but its true rejuvenation.
“Our aim was to create a game that would preserve the traditions of the classic PC title,” adds Nikolay Baryshnikov, International Sales Director of 1C Company. “King’s Bounty was a founder of a new and very popular genre. There are still people that remember and love this game throughout the world. I’m sure that together with Katauri Interactive, the creators of the successful Space Rangers series, we will able to deliver a game worthy of its famous predecessor.”
The current release date is scheduled for Q4 2007.
I only played King’s Bounty a couple of times, but isn’t the HOMM series pretty much exactly like it? I hope this will be good, but it’s not like they’re reviving some dead genre or remaking a game that fans have been starving for for years.
Well at least one fan has been starving for it. I still play King’s Bounty all the time, because as good as HOMM is, I’m not a real big fan of the turn based map movement and the city building and so forth.
The HOMM series was based on the core tactical battle system of King’s Bounty but with a lot of changes and additions: RPG elements, building up of towns and cities, etc. Most significantly, on almost all maps, the HOMM series played a lot differently than King’s Bounty.
King’s Bounty still holds a special place in my gaming memory: it was the first game I ever stayed up all night to play, going bleary eyed to classes the next day.
It was possible to use the HOMM editor to make a HOMM map that played very much like the old King’s Bounty. I actually made a map that did just that for HoMM II. If I recall correctly, it was called something like “Valley of the Titans”. I remember posting it up at Rob Merritt’s old Might and Magic site. I got tons of email from people who downloaded and played it: a LOT of HOMM players really liked the more King’s Bounty-esque gameplay.
So news of a new game using the King’s Bounty license definitely perks up my interest. I bounced off Space Rangers 2, but the design was quirky enough that I will follow news of this new project with interest.
Hmmm… I wonder if Stardock could publish this here in the U.S… or at least distribute it digitally like they did Space Rangers 2. That would be pretty excellent.
King’s Bounty still holds a special place in my gaming memory: it was the first game I ever stayed up all night to play, going bleary eyed to classes the next day.
Heh, me too (the Sega Genesis version). Sometimes I can still hear the music in my head…sometimes.
I played the original on a console first, and PC gaming is retardedly expensive. I can’t afford to upgrade my computer, and I can’t afford to not play the new King’s Bounty. Consoles are the only option.
What makes you think you’ll need to upgrade your computer to play it? It doesn’t look particularly cutting-edge, graphically. Space Rangers 2 certainly wasn’t.
I don’t care what they call it. I’ve been looking forward to this one for a while now. Of course, I’ve only played KB recently (a year or two ago) , and didn’t care for it much. So I don’t have the nostalgia part. But this game already has it’s main elements, so I doubt the name change means overly much.
