Kingdom Under Fire 2 (November 14, 2019 – October 26, 2021)
Genre: MMORTS | Developer: Blueside | Platforms: PC | Payment Model: Buy2Play
What kind of game was it? Kingdom Under Fire 2 was a Korean MMORPG with some innovative ideas. It aimed to mix the MMORPG and RTS genres to create interesting raids and battles for fortresses.
- At the start, you had the choice of 5 different classes and played through an introduction typical for MMORPGs: with a tutorial, quests, and grinding for new gear.
- However, in later instances, a completely new aspect was introduced: as a commander, you led a troop of soldiers that you could command with orders.
- With a hotkey, you could then switch between the RTS view for commands and the third-person view to fight with your character. This added a tactical and interesting note to the entire combat system.
Your troops accompanied you in dungeons, raids for up to 16 players, and several PvP modes. With your troops and hordes of enemies, epic battles emerged.
At the same time, there was an open world and PvP arenas, where you controlled only your character – like in an MMORPG – and jumped into battle.
What led to its failure? The publisher Gameforge did not provide an official reason. However, the low player count was likely a big problem:
- On Steam, in September, there were on average only 14 players online at the same time.
- At peak, there were just 37 simultaneously (via Steamcharts).
- How many players the Gameforge client had is unknown, but according to our own experiences with the game in early 2020, it was likely not much larger.
Kingdom Under Fire actually received fairly positive reviews upon release. The reviews were 77% positive, and the mix of round strategy and MMORPG was praised. Furthermore, the game was not pay-to-win and there were some challenging late-game content.
However, shortly after release, players complained about the lack of content updates and slow bug fixes. Additionally, KUF2 was released 7 years after its release in Korea in the West, and this with a buy-to-play model.
Some fans claim that with a free-to-play model, more players would have tried the mix of MMORPG and RTS, and therefore hold the publisher Gameforge partly responsible.
What are the best memories? The highlights of Kingdom Under Fire 2 were certainly the large battles, in which you fought with multiple players and a handful of troops. Here, you could see that at least there was an idea to inject fresh air into both genres.
After all, there’s nothing cooler than leading a massive army and being in the middle of action-packed fights.
As an example, we have embedded this raid video from YouTuber Shaxyel, showcasing a raid for 16 players:
Are there alternatives or successors? In the Kingdom Under Fire universe, there are some older and newer titles. However, they do not focus as much on multiplayer as KUF2.
However, there isn’t a true alternative that mixes an MMORPG with an RTS. Here, games like Conqueror’s Blade or, depending on the preference, RTS games like Total War come to mind.
