I took my first look at Kings and Heroes tonight. I guess I should say this is my second look because over a year ago I was invited out to the Industry Games HQ to meet the team and see a very, very early version of Kings and Heroes while it was still in a much earlier phase of development. I was able to see the direction they were going, give my feedback, and hopefully influence in some small minuscule way the final product that Industry Games is working towards delivering.
I decided to record the entire first look for you guys to watch alongside my thoughts here. I tend to launch into random thoughts throughout the video that will hopefully translate well into writing.
[su_youtube url=”https://youtu.be/djARYWUF4E8″ width=”700″]
An Large Enormous World with Enormous Potential that’s…
Enormously Empty
The world of Sundaria is huge. Enormous. Even the starting city of Everdale eclipses the modern RPG or MMO town. I love that so much. The only problem being the unfortunate fact that it’s mostly empty and requires breathing life into what’s otherwise a very empty (yet pretty) shell. I love the possibility for exploration.
I’m curious to figure out this odd juxtaposition between Kings and Heroes being a dungeon crawler loot adventure and this enormous world. There’s potential for an Elder Scrolls RPG-type world here, but the gameplay thus far is being conveyed as queuing up for dungeons.
Exploring around Everdale, which you’ll see in the video, I found tons of awesome opportunities to create player housing, guild housing, amazing shops, etc. If they leave entirely for NPCs…. that’s really an incredible amount of space to fill with seemingly not enough stuff actually need.
Adventures Await in Dungeon Dives
The core of Kings and Heroes gameplay is (currently) found in their dungeon dives. The whole point being for players to run dungeons, get loot, and do it again to continually advance. Diablo is proof enough that people like the concept of continually running the same thing over and over. What I like about this concept is the first-person almost roguelike nature of the dungeons. They’re really hard. You can see in the video that I dive into one solo on the easiest difficulty. Not only is it larger than I thought, but I get creamed. Obviously it’s meant to be a group experience.
With traps, bosses, and having to cooperatively negotiate the dangerous mobs, I think there’s plenty of fun. One key point is that the dungeons are procedurally generated. For the uninitiated, that means the dungeons are random and they’ll vary in size, difficulty, layout, etc. That’s pretty cool for a 3D world.
More to come….
That’s really just my first look at Kings and Heroes in its early-access Steam launch state. As I mention in the video, I would like to get a Q&A from the dev team at Industry Games. I have lots of questions about where Kings and Heroes is going. Lots of potential here; I think that’s what lures me in most.
Looks cool. The mobs appearing out of nowhere though seems extremely irritating.
Maybe they were sneaky interdimensional skeleton ninjas with the ability to warp in and out of phase… it could happen.
That seems like a very logical explanation.
Barring that, I did like the setup, I wanted to pick it up, unfortunately moneys tight! 🙁 Gotta get that game out!
Looks decent right now. As you mentioned, something to fire up and run a quick dungeon or two with friends. Did seem a little loot pinata-ish though, one dungeon and you had multiple tabs of multi-color loot. I’m sure that’s something that can be worked on during EA though.
I didn’t watch it all but found your video interesting and funny. Well done.
Like you said has potential but man – if $30 is their EA price they must be looking at a $50 release price. There is a WHOLE lot of content that needs adding to be worth the same as a AAA rpg. Way overpriced for what it offers at the moment.
Is this the replacement to Hellgate: London I’ve been waiting years for?