In November 2019, the MMO Kingdom Under Fire 2 was released, but it did not receive much attention. Now, almost 3 months have passed, and we will look at what has changed and whether the long development time was worth it.
What is Kingdom Under Fire 2? The MMO from the Korean developer Blueside has a very unique approach. It combines MMORPG and RTS elements and offers a very own and highly strategic gameplay experience.
You can create your own character, play, equip, and teach it skills, while at the same time it also takes on the role of a commander and sends troops into battle.
Additionally, Kingdom Under Fire 2 includes content such as:
- Quests
- A very simple crafting system
- Group content in the form of dungeons and raids
- PvP content
How has the game evolved? The history of the game goes back a long way:
- Originally, Kingdom Under Fire 2 was announced in Korea back in 2008. However, the release kept getting delayed.
- As revealed in an interview with MeinMMO, balancing issues and technical hurdles were the reasons for the delays. The combination of MMORPG and RTS seemed to be a significant hurdle.
- Due to the long development time, it is considered the most expensive Korean MMO of all time. By 2017, it was already reported to cost over 78 million US dollars. The costs have likely risen since then.
On November 14, 2019, the game finally made its way to the West, thanks in part to the German publisher Gameforge. However, a significant hype was initially absent.
Good Reviews on Steam, but Few Players
How did the MMO perform at launch? Directly at launch, there was little hype around Kingdom Under Fire 2. The game was simply burned out before it even released, attributed to the many delays.
However, the MMO performed quite well on Steam, at least according to the reviews. 75% of the 1,029 reviews (as of February 5, 1:00 PM) are positive.
Especially the strategy elements are praised, while the RPG content does not fare as well. A similar conclusion was reached by our author Alexander Leitsch in his gameplay report in November.
What are the player numbers like? While even the reviews from the last 30 days are mostly positive, the player numbers suggest a different trend:
- Already in the release month of November, KUF2 only averaged 626.7 players on Steam. At peak, 1,213 were logged into the MMO.
- In December, the numbers fell slightly.
- In January, there was a significant drop. The average player count fell to 288.9, with only 743 online at peak.
Although the MMO is also played via Gameforge’s own launcher, the numbers do suggest a trend.
It can also be seen on Google Trends that the interest in Kingdom Under Fire 2 has significantly declined. The developers are regularly providing new updates for the MMO.
Monthly Updates – But is that Enough?
How is KUF2 developing? In the forum for Kingdom Under Fire 2, the publisher Gameforge regularly reports in community updates what is planned for the game and which issues they want to address soon. They focus strongly on player feedback from the forum.
Apparently, there is supposed to be a large content patch every month:
- In December, an update was released which included the first 16-player raid, a new solo dungeon, and new units. German guilds also participated in the race for the World Firsts.
- On January 21, the next major update was released, which brought PvP content in the form of 6v6 and 3v3, new quests, and also new units.
- The February update aims to address issues with gold drops and balancing. Additionally, another 8-player raid is planned.
- For the future, new PvP content has also been announced, but there are no details yet.
Are monthly updates enough for the players? So far, the updates seem to satisfy the Kingdom Under Fire 2 community. Especially the gold issue, which is to be addressed in February, is one of the biggest points of criticism from players.
Also, the new raid is eagerly anticipated, which is reportedly so difficult that it could not be completed in the Russian version.
However, all these updates are more aimed at the existing players. They likely do not attract many new ones.
Uncertain Future, Especially in NA
This is what our author Alex thinks about the future: Kingdom Under Fire 2 manages to excite and keep current players engaged with the updates. Especially the raids and the PvP content have attracted some strategy fans.
However, there are ongoing issues with the server in North America. The community there is steadily declining, while it seems stable in the EU. There are no exact player numbers provided by the developers.
The game is characterized especially by its RTS elements. If you are looking for a pure MMORPG, KUF2 is the wrong address. However, for fans of group challenges and RTS content, KUF2 offers a lot.
Although the MMO has already faced problems in other regions and was discontinued in Asia, Germans are known to love strategy games, so it’s quite possible that Kingdom Under Fire 2 will remain with us longer.
Nevertheless, the game is more aimed at a niche and will likely never reach the numbers of larger MMORPGs, which is why the 12 years of development time and the high costs likely were not worth it.
