September Madness continues this week with the release of Owlcat Games' Pathfinder: Kingmaker. Kingmaker appeared in our lives out of nowhere back in May 2017. Some were skeptical at first - a rather generic-looking RTwP RPG from a team of Russian unknowns with obligatory Chris Avellone involvement, clearly intended to capitalize on the success of Pillars of Eternity. The game would soon would make its way to Kickstarter, and with each new update it became clear that this was no typical Eastern European shovelware product. The "team of Russian unknowns" was in fact a band of seasoned Nival veterans and roleplaying enthusiasts, who had been working on the game for at least a year. It was already in a quite functional alpha state when the Kickstarter launched, and the gameplay footage we saw was indisputable evidence that Owlcat knew what they were doing.

So Pathfinder: Kingmaker is out today, and expectations are high. Not only is it the world's first proper Pathfinder CRPG, it's also in effect the first real D&D CRPG since Neverwinter Nights 2. Not to mention the game itself is an adaptation of a well-known Pathfinder tabletop adventure path. For those frustrated by Obsidian's iconoclastic take on the Infinity Engine formula, Kingmaker is an especially important milestone. But even with all their talent and experience, do Owlcat really have what it takes to produce a satisfactory adaptation of a six chapter adventure path on their first try - with a complex kingdom management layer on top, to boot? I guess we're about to find out. Here's the launch trailer:


Pathfinder: Kingmaker is available now on Steam and GOG for $40. There are no launch day reviews, which strengthens my suspicion that Owlcat had to crunch on this game until the last minute. Some players are reporting severe loading time issues and typos - hopefully we're not about to witness another review bombing.