Kingdom Under Fire II is finally receiving an official release, and coming to North America and Europe, after over a decade of delays.
Korean developer Blueside’s MMOARTS — that is, massively multiplayer online action real-time strategy — title was originally announced in 2008, and promised a 2009 release for PC and Xbox 360. A closed beta was run in Korea in 2011, but it didn’t transition into a wide release. The game was changed to a PC and PlayStation 4 title in 2013, this time with a 2014 release date. An open beta began in 2014, but a full release still didn’t materialize. In 2017 the game secured a limited Russian release via publisher Innova, but in February the game’s servers were shut down, rendering it effectively abandonware. That was the final news on Kingdom Under Fire II until today, when publisher Gameforge announced that they had secured the rights to a Western release.
Kingdom Under Fire II is a massively multiplayer online game, but there is no information yet on what its business model will be. Gameforge specializes in Korean-developed MMOs that use a free-to-play model, such as Tera and SoulWorker, so that might give us a clue as to how this new game will fit into the crowded MMO marketplace.
Kingdom Under Fire II comes out for PC later this year.
