King's Bounty II - Announced for 2020

King's Bounty II has been announced by 1C Entertainment for 2020:

King's Bounty II

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Fantasy and Realism
Experience a vast fantasy world that expertly blends beloved genre tropes with gritty realism to ensure players remain grounded in this desperate, realm-wide struggle.

Unpredictable non-Linear Story
Told through the lens of a highly cinematic experience, King's Bounty II puts choice in players' hands rather than their mouths. But instead of hinging on simple dialogue choices, it is the players' actions that hold the true weight.

Unique Characters
King's Bounty II gives players three characters to choose from, each with their own unique story.

Sytem of Ideals
As players explore the realm, their stories change as they align themselves with different Ideals: Strength, Art, Order, and Anarchy.

Tactical Battles
Each squad consists of wholly unique units, each with their own set of skills and visual appearance. Players can expect new tactical features for deeper, richer combat experience.

More information.

I've enjoyed the KB series, I got into it with the Warriors of the North DLC some years back. Colorful and with the best elements of HOMM, and definitely had that "one more turn" vibe. Hope your leader unit can participate in battle, that's always a fun feature too.

Highly cinematic experience? Hopefully highly skippable, I want a better version of first game not hollywood b movie.

Also looking at those screenshots I can only see the standard human medieval vibe along with some trolls and the dragon in the video. Hopefully it will be feature rich with other races/creatures as the original.

First two from 1C were awsome. The third one was… Too samey. The last one where you're playing the dark side is unbelievably boring.

But this one set for the next year says not linear unlike predecessors so I'll bite.
Of course, buying only if OST is by Lind Erebros.



EDIT:
Well… Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeet.

The content was cut and there are three editions as if the publisher was EA.
Why am I saying EA? Because the most expensive 85€ edition, so called King's, has:
https://eu.1cgames.net/en/games/king…nty2_legendary

Rage Casket along with unique questline

I'll be waiting for some serious bargain.

They apparently good rid of the cartoony visuals. Nice!

No buy for me. I liked it because of the cartoonish look.

I guess I really have to buy myself a nintendo console, then.

Originally Posted by Morrandir
They apparently good rid of the cartoony visuals. Nice!

Interestingly, the direct opposite NEVER happens. I'm not surprised when I try to imagine, why.

I always see devs going into the "Darker and Edgier" realm, and those who love that say "play Hello Kitty" as an insult. The goal is clear : Everything should become "grimdark", and to me, that's just what I call "the heavymetalization in/of the media".
I domN#t understand it. It's a if people believed that everything would look so much better if it was dark. Like dark burned pizzas, for example.

First two from 1C were awsome. The third one was… Too samey. The last one where you're playing the dark side is unbelievably boring.

Joxer captured my sentiments exactly. The first was good, the second had many improvements making it even better, but Warriors of the North was just a rehash with different troops, and there wasn't as wide a diversity of them as the previous games. I barely started the Dark Side. It just didn't hold my interest.

I like this type of game, Heroes of Might and Magic without the town building aspect. I hope they do a good job on KB2.

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
No buy for me. I liked it because of the cartoonish look.

I guess I really have to buy myself a nintendo console, then.





Interestingly, the direct opposite NEVER happens. I'm not surprised when I try to imagine, why.

I always see devs going into the "Darker and Edgier" realm, and those who love that say "play Hello Kitty" as an insult. The goal is clear : Everything should become "grimdark", and to me, that's just what I call "the heavymetalization in/of the media".
I domN#t understand it. It's a if people believed that everything would look so much better if it was dark. Like dark burned pizzas, for example.

I don't like artificially dark themes also.
Just give me a decent realistic look.

I quite enjoyed the first two, and I'll keep an eye on this one and see what folks think of it when it launches.

Looks interesting. I'll probably buy this one if it looks compelling enough.

Loved the original KB series with its slightly old-fashioned high fantasy tropes and similarity to HoMM. This, however, looks very different. Not sure how I feel about this to be honest. Great to think that we might be revisiting the KB world but just hope that they are not trying to pass out a completely new style of game on the back of a franchise name.

I agree with Alrik on this one. The cartoon graphics blended well with the light hearted, Monty Pythonesque humour of King's Bounty The Legend and it's sequel. When I look at the above it just reminds of all the run of the mill eurojank clutter that is more often miss than hit. I've no doubt this will be better than that, but I struggle to see how they'll retain the humorous charm factor and, if they do, how will it contrast with the aesthetic?

I also agree with joxer that my enthusiasm for the original 1C reboot series died after the second game. I kept meaning to play the third or fourth game in the series but never got the urge for some reason, I just replayed the first two instead. While I didn't play them so cannot speak for their qualities or lack of in any way, joxer's actual experience of them matches my thoughts after I read about them.

It makes sense that if someone's first experience with the series is the third or fourth game then they wouldn't have that same situation and could probably enjoy them more, such as with Dhraiden.

I enjoyed all four of the games, although WotN less so because of the endless grind. Armored Princess was the best with a fair margin, but I also really enjoyed the Dark Side, perhaps partly because sufficient time had passed since I played the other ones, but also because it was a nice change of pace where you used different units to the other three.

While I'm hoping this turns out good I'm not at all a fan of the new more realistic look, one huge part on my enjoyment of the earlier games was the light tone and humour, if they go make it all dark and gritty they make the same mistake Ubisoft did with Homm in my opinion (and to me the last good Homm was 4, 5 was okish but I got bored of 6 pretty damn fast…)

Like others have mentioned, the graphics in the previous games were to my liking, and I'm not sure I'll care for the new look. I'll really check out reviews and, if the newest game is anything like the first two, I will likely grab it.

I don’t care if its cartoony or not. If they capture the fun and addictive gameplay of the first games I’ll buy.

I enjoyed a lot the first, and a proud owner of the world record never matched even by Russian players. :-)

But I never ever enjoyed any other I tried, I always felt them too much clones and not as good than the first. I didn't tried them all, perhaps one found new ideas working better than in the first.

For a realism change approach, I'm fine with it, but for me the gameplay need a deep change in approach to really make my interested. If they switch from stack of units to real units then it could be enough to bring me back into the series.

If it was cartoony again then it would probably feel like more of the same. I think changing the art style will be refreshing.

Originally Posted by SirJames
If it was cartoony again then it would probably feel like more of the same. I think changing the art style will be refreshing.

My point too, I prefer cartoony because it ensures less money spend on graphics/animations and more money spend on gameplay. But this series cloned itself a lot too much, it needs a major evolution to bring back the attention, and make it clear through different graphic style can help.

Originally Posted by Dasale
My point too, I prefer cartoony because it ensures less money spend on graphics/animations and more money spend on gameplay. But this series cloned itself a lot too much, it needs a major evolution to bring back the attention, and make it clear through different graphic style can help.

A slight misconception here. It wasn't the cloning that put people off, it was the fact that after the second game the developers changed from Katauri Interactive to 1C-Softclub. The third games had instability and bug issues that the first two games were renown for not having and the gameplay lacked the pacing and quality of the originals, knocking a lot of fans away from the series.

Originally Posted by Xian
I barely started the Dark Side. It just didn't hold my interest.

Darkside has the worst start of the entire series. However, the game completely changes once you complete the first couple of maps. I forgot the exactly what happens but it doesn't get good till after the shelter/black gate. Far better than WotN and almost as good as the first one - but still a step down from Crossroads/AP.