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King’s Bounty: The Legend is an upcoming PC strategy RPG developed by 1C and published by Atari. Unlike most strategy RPGs, the concept behind King’s Bounty is to create a unique and rich experience outside of the turn-based style battles. The game certainly has an MMO vibe accompanying it. As I watched the presenter at Gen Con navigate the massive map, pick up quests, buy items, and interact with NPCs, all that I could think of was how inspirational World of Warcraft has been to the creation of even single-player PC RPGs.

Battles on the world map are not random. As players navigate from area to area, they will see the enemies and react according to their desire. The battle system is based in a grid composed of hexagons. The various classes in the game will be able to navigate the hexagons and choose attacks that befit them. I was pleasantly surprised by how small the battles appear to be. Players are constricted to a tiny grid instead of the massive and sprawling map. The fights that I saw lasted mere minutes as opposed to the large-scale crawl into which many SRPGs put players. Players may even have to fight their own weapons. Items in King’s Bounty are sentient, and the choice of the wrong party members may cause disagreement between the protagonist and his trusty monster-slayer.

Players will be able to choose from three types of characters, which are the Warrior, Paladin, and Mage. After picking this class, players will be spawned in the area of their character’s origin and be thrust into an extremely bright and exotic environment with several different landscapes that includes dungeons, cities, castles, and even giant turtles. King’s Bounty is slated for a holiday release this year, and we’ll be sure to keep you in the loop as more details come in.