Kingdom Under Fire II is one of our readers' most-anticipated titles. While a North American publisher has yet to be announced, an English language version has recently entered beta testing. We caught up with Executive Producer Sang Youn Lee team to talk about the game, its features and more.
MMORPG: Kingdom Under Fire combines two genres into an action packed game. What is it like working with both RTS and MMO styles?
Sang Youn Lee: I felt it’s quite difficult challenge making new genre game. As the genre of Kingdom Under Fire II is totally different from other games, it was essential to build the stage step by step and to have inspection on every stage. Expressing the features and fun factors of RTS/RPG genres melted in Kingdom under fire properly is very important.
Therefore we have developed Kingdom Under Fire II making sure all aspects we planned are properly expressed in every stage.
MMORPG: Can you give us some of the background on the game and its lore? How does the sequel continue the story?
Sang Youn Lee: Kingdom Under Fire II is about the story of the Bersia continent after about 120 years has passed since Crusaders. Hironeiden, the strong nation in the past, has lots of difficulty inside. On the contrary, Ecclesia became the stronger nation. Regnier, the powerful hero in Crusaders, disappeared to somewhere and became a legend. Encablossa sent a mighty one called Celes to Bersia in order to regain the Age of Darkness and destroy the Age of Light. Players become a mercenary and participate in war to protect the world in the Age of Light from Celes.
)
MMORPG: What are the benefits of each of the factions? Do they fit different play styles?
Sang Youn Lee: Kingdom Under Fire had 2 Factions, one was Human Alliance and the other was Dark Legion. We have added one more Faction: the Exiles, in Kingdom under fire II.
Human Alliance has gameplay like middle age strategy game by using various well balanced troops with organized powers. As Elf and Dwarf have joined the Human Alliance, there are lots of unique mechanics created by the fusion of technology from Dwarves and magic from Elves such as Steam Tower.
In case of Dark Legion, each individual has great ability and they have great number of armies. They also use various monsters and unique black magic.
And the newly appearing Faction “Exile” is the one from the dimension of darkness. They are small in number but have evolved body and spirit. They are specialized in melee combat. I may say that they are like Protoss in Starcraft. Though they are only small numbers, each individual has extreme powers.
)
MMORPG: You have three very distinct classes in the game: Berserker, Gunslinger, Spellsword. Can you briefly tell us how each one plays?
Sang Youn Lee: Berserker has a huge bastard sword and he is a powerful tanker with a wide attack range. This character has powerful stamina and wipes out mass enemies at the melee combat. With his rage, he can perform powerful deathblows so even beginners can control this character easily.
The Gunslinger is very technical character which participates in battle with gun and sword. Players can feel it’s tricky to control this character but once they become used to it, players can be most efficient in combat at both action play and troop controls. Especially this character has strong feature in controlling troops: players can manage more powerful and agile troops with Gunslinger.
In the case of the Spellsword, this character has low health but can use lots of magic with fast and splendid skills.
MMORPG: The artwork on the game is really amazing: what were some of the inspirations on the style?
Sang Youn Lee: Kingdom Under Fire II is basically based on former Kingdom Under Fire series. Especially for this series, we referred to lots of things for reality. Early on in Kingdom Under Fire II, the movie ‘Kingdom Of Heaven” was our main reference.
We did lots of historical research about medieval fantasy to mimic reality.
In case of Encablossa, we referred to various science fiction movies for its design. To keep creativity, we examined everything very thoroughly several times and iterated as needed.
When we designed Battaloon it was with the inverse concept to emphasize its unique character. Of course, these kinds of design would be impossible without the Blueside Engine 2.0. The Blueside Engine has the biggest role in expressing large number of objects with high quality.
)
MMORPG: Can you give us some ideas on your plans moving forward for 2014?
Sang Youn Lee: Kingdom Under Fire II will open service gradually in Asia, North America, Europe and other countries in 2014 beginning with the SEA service. We are planning to expand open beta to all over the world during the second half of the year. Also, for those with new consoles, you'll be happy to hear that a PS4 version is planned to be released around that time.
