Today, on October 26, the servers of Kingdom Under Fire 2 were shut down. The game offered an interesting mix of RTS and MMORPG content. It was eagerly awaited before release, but disappointed. Many players blame the German publisher Gameforge.
Kingdom Under Fire 2 is dead. Both on Steam and in the Gameforge client, the game’s servers were shut down at 10:00 AM German time. Now there is no chance to play the MMO from Blueside in the West.
Why was it shut down? The publisher Gameforge did not provide an official reason. However, the low player count was likely a major issue:
- On Steam, there were only an average of 14 players online simultaneously in September.
- At peak, there were only 37 online simultaneously (via Steamcharts).
- While the number of players on the Gameforge client is unknown, it likely wasn’t much larger based on our experiences in the game in early 2020.
At launch, Kingdom Under Fire received quite good reviews. The reviews were 77% positive, and the mix of turn-based strategy and MMORPG was praised. Additionally, the game was not pay-to-win, and there were some challenging endgame contents.
We at MeinMMO were positively surprised by the game at an early playtest event:
However, soon after the release, players complained about a lack of content updates and slow bug fixes. Additionally, KUF2 was released 7 years after its release in Korea here in the West.
Some players therefore blame the publisher Gameforge for the game’s demise.
“Congratulations to Gameforge for ruining this game”
What do the players say? On Steam, some players have expressed negative views about the cancellation of Kingdom Under Fire and about Gameforge:
- The user Cakewalk writes: “Congratulations to Gameforge for ruining this game. You paid to publish it in EU/US and managed to drive away the player base 3 weeks after launch.”
- Grieves Amori also sees the fault with Gameforge: “I knew it after a few months, as you never released new content for it. Of course, people would lose interest if nothing changed.”
- Even Jor is dissatisfied with the western version: “They messed up the launch of the game, and now no one can play it. People waited so long, and now it is closing 2 years after release. This is a joke. Screw Gameforge.”
Is Gameforge really to blame for the downfall of KUF2? It’s hard to say, as there were no major content updates for the MMO after it was released. Only a few new dungeons and new PvP content were added shortly after the release. After that, it went completely quiet regarding further development.
Kingdom Under Fire 2 was also buy-to-play, which is a hurdle for new players.
However, the game also failed in other regions, with which Gameforge had nothing to do:
- In 2014, Kingdom Under Fire was released in Malaysia and was distributed there by MMOGAsia. They discontinued the game back in April 2017.
- The developers announced a PS4 version in 2013 that was never released. It is still listed on Blueside’s Korean website as “coming soon.”
- In Russia, there was a beta in the spring of 2017, but there was never a release of the full game thereafter.
- There was also a beta in China. However, nothing can be found regarding a finished release version for this region.
How the Korean version is doing – and whether it still exists – is not entirely clear. It is certainly not found in the top 50 of the game charts, and the official website of the developer Blueside does not offer a download option.
This is particularly bitter when considering that development cost over 78 million dollars, which made it the most expensive MMORPG from Korea at one point.
What do players hope for? Many fans of Kingdom Under Fire 2 hope that the MMO will somehow become a single-player version or that KUF3 will be released as a single-player game in the future. Because the basic gameplay with the RTS elements was well received by them.
Did you play Kingdom Under Fire 2 yourself? And do you remember it in a good or bad light? Feel free to write it in the comments.
KUF2 was not the first MMO to die this year. The first game even bit the dust back in January:
