Redemption Road has delayed its shooter strategy game Kingmakers indefinitely, saying it needs “a little bit more time on content polish before we feel good about charging money for it.”
In a statement posted to social media on October 3, the studio said the October 8 release date was now “no longer possible,” and apologized to players, adding: “we are sorry for letting you down.”
Kingmakers features a soldier who travels back to Medieval England, hoping to “change the course of a bloody war” to avert the apocalypse. According to the official release, it will be a “fully real-time simulation with thousands of soldiers fighting simultaneously” utilizing “next-gen multi-threaded AI.”
Kingmakers’ announcement trailer was a viral hit, garnering hundreds of thousands of views on IGN and other channels, with more than a few fans comparing it to Gate, an anime that features a similar mix of modern warfare and medieval fantasy.
While many fans accepted the news, some were disappointed about the late notice, especially as the delay came less than a week before the scheduled release date.
“Why is Kingmakers being delayed? In short, it’s an incredibly ambitious, uncompromising game, and we don’t want to cut any planned features, for the sake of getting it out the door earlier,” the company explained. “Our goal, from the start, has been to create something that’s nothing like anything else on the market, in terms of gameplay, scale, scope, and interactivity.
“With Kingmakers, we set out to push the Unreal Engine 4 codebase to its absolute limits, while still providing true 60fps to mid-range PCs, without the need for fake frames. We are an 80% engineering team, who got into this business to push technological barriers.”
The statement went on to explain that the shooter boasts “tens of thousands of soldiers, each with AI and pathfinding that rivals what you’d expect from a AAA person shooter.”
“When you walk away from a battle, it continues to play out,” it added. “Nothing is faked. We have giant six story castles where every room can be entered and every wall, floor, and ceiling destroyed. When you build a Lumbermill, it’s a real place that can be entered or, in an enemy invasion, turned into a combat area.
“Every mission takes place in a giant, massive map that each player on the server is free to explore – with or without their own personal army of thousands,” Redemption added. “We set out to do all of this, with full drop-in/drop-out four-player multiplayer support, and we have. We just need a little bit more time on content polish before we feel good about charging money for it. So that is what we are doing now. We’re making sure everyone who buys the game is enthralled and feels like their money was well spent. We want this to be the case whether you have a top-of-the-line rig or a PC that’s seen better days.”
Redemption Road did not provide a revised release date, but did promise to share a half-hour-long “deepdive on Kingmakers gameplay very soon.”
Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world’s biggest gaming sites and publications. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.
