IGN: What was the reasoning behind the decision to depart from the RTS and dungeon crawler genres of the previous games and opt for a MMOARTS?
SangYoun Lee: Kingdom Under Fire 2 ("KUF2" hereinafter) as introduced in our first announcement is a sequel that truly inherits Kingdom Under Fire: The Crusaders.
First, our goal was to make a perfection of action Real-time Strategy genre that once we tried to achieve in KUFTC. And I've always believed that the key essence of RTS games is to enjoy completing it with other people online. Blending these two principals gave a birth to the new Kingdom Under Fire and ended up being called a MMOARTS game, which stands for Massively Multiplayer Online Action RTS, with a virtual world where gamers can live in, form a massive army then declare a war against other groups of gamers rather than go for a quick in-and-out RTS match.
Even though KUF2 will be based on an MMO system which can hold a massive population and players can interact with each other, its general game system will purely reflect the traditional RTS that you know. Instead of you become a commander or foot-soldier wandering around in a map to hunt monsters like in RPGs, in KUF2 you will experience revolutionary enhanced RTS battles that not only allow you to tactically command your troops, but also urge you to protect your territories, castles, keeps and etc. in both first and third perspective. With in-game supplies to grow your hero, army and territory, there shall be unlimited tactics and strategies that you can come up with.
Reviving the medieval ages, thousands of gamers can co-join in war, choose their side, trade with each other, expand and cultivate their territory, then go out to the battlefield to match with other gamers in 1 vs. 1, 2 vs. 2, or 3 vs. 3 over possession or protection of territories.
IGN: Will we see characters from the previous games in the game (Regnier/Rick Miner, Celine, Curian, Lilani, Leinhardt, etc.)?
SangYoun Lee: Some of them will make their return, but more heroes will be newly introduced with unique look and strength for each. We will reveal more information around them down the road.
IGN: Were the characters in Circle of Doom in a dream state (or sleeping in Encablossa) throughout the game?
SangYoun Lee: Circle of Doom was all about heroes being caught inside of Encablossa's dimension and their attempts to escape from it. Luckily some of heroes did manage themselves to get out from this doom world and when they returned to real world, 150 years passed although they'd only stayed in Encablossa's dimension for a short period. The new story of Kingdom Under Fire starts from that point then resumes the saga of Kingdom Under Fire universe.
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