Game News King's Bounty: Darkside released on Steam Early Access

Tags: 1C Company; King's Bounty: King's Bounty: Darkside



King's Bounty: Darkside has been released on Steam Early Access. You can gain access to it by purchasing the game for $24.99.

 

Played it a bit. Wouldn't recommend it at this stage unless you just love King's Bounty as much as inXile loves corridors. Basically imagine the samey-ness of the last standalone King's Bounty expansion, only with lots of crashes and poor game balance (which is expected, iterating combat and economy balance is something that happens late).

 

They've been making the same game for six years now.

 

Will have to try out, then form a opinion. Metro pretty much, but its easy to get into. I have been playing KB Crossroads and WN more, then say Heroes 3 complete with Wake of the gods mod. So more of same in this genre is not a issue for me, kind of wish they would this with Star Wolves series or Space Rangers.

 

So I played this one some more, and have revised my opinion a bit. I'd say it's on par with Crossworlds so far--much better than Viking Unicorn Buttsex of the North or whatever that last one was called, worth playing if you've been away from the KB formula for long enough for it to seem fresh. Writing varies between excellent and laughably bad/lazy, which was par the course for the original KB too. As far as bugginess goes, it's there, but I've been impressed with how quickly they're updating this thing on Steam. It's been at least an update a day, sometimes multiple updates within a few hours.

Difficulty feels a bit low, but that was a complaint I had with the series in general--with Katauri's original KB, the game could throw up some challenges even on Normal. As the series went on, it got easier and easier, until we're here, where Impossible feels like Normal in the original. Definitely play this on Impossible if you are familiar with Heroes of Might and Magic type games. Anything less is going to bore you quickly.

 

Oh God, I thought I was done with KB for good, after the long dreary slog through Ice&Fire, but you dragged me back in, damn you. I will probably get it once it's out of beta. I understand this Early Access shit is a handy business model for smalller devs but it's really starting to piss me off with how much of it is sloshing around nowadays.

 

By the way,

Show Spoiler Hide Spoiler

We've apparently reached the point in the series where the rehashing is so well-accepted that even the developers are cribbing on it.

 

Thoughtless copies, indeed. Sums up the entire series (excluding the classics).

 

So I bought this, been playing for a bit. It's better than Warriors of the north, but it has kinda the same major issue. It starts out rather fresh but by the midgame you're still using the same units and strategies as in all the other games, fighting the same enemy compositions as you fought in previous games.

 

Yes, I really can't tell why I keep buying these fucking things. Or playing them start to finish.

 

Normally I'm a sucker for these games but the magic words "Early Access" seem to have cured my addiction.

 

I have to admit I'm not that excited about this - I enjoyed The Legend and I recently played AP/Crossworlds, which I enjoyed as well, but I've more or less had enough of this game after about 80+40 hours. I'm not sure I'll even get around to Warriors, to be honest - maybe in a couple of years.

 

This should be the next Codex motto.

 

You'd have to actually buy a game first, bro.

 

The most important question is: How many spiders, snakes and skeletons do you have to slaughter in this one?

Are the new classes and stuff interesting gameplay?

 

That's reassuring considering that Warriors of the North was released as Early Access in all but name. I dread to imagine the quality of WotN in a pre-release state.

Still... Early Access.

 

Well runemages really were getting more than a bit silly in WotN No Paladins either I guess. Will be most confusing!

Sounds like it might be interesting if they do a decent job with it, which isn't guaranteed.

 

Well part of the fun was to use different units each run, I made use of Snow Elves in the last game (they suck btw).