trailer for Kingmakers<\/a>, I encourage you to watch it now before continuing. If you have, or perhaps you are reading this magazine in an effort to limit screen time (you\u2019re doing great, and we appreciate your support), I can\u2019t continue to talk about the game without spoiling its major twist. The trailer teases what appears to be a medieval strategy game with base-building elements before a contemporary, but admittedly junky truck screams through time to arrive in the middle of a battlefield brimming with horses, suits of armor, and presumably the shouting of old English phrases, but it\u2019s difficult to hear through the chaos.<\/p>\nWhat follows is something closer to Dynasty Warriors, where one man with modern weapon technology like guns and missile launchers wages war against armies of the past. The premise is immediately enticing, bizarre, and funny, but Kingmakers\u2019 creators, brothers Ian and Paul Fisch, are taking a surprisingly grounded approach to its game while fully embracing the absurd but compelling idea.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThe plot is important, especially when it comes to the historical accuracy,\u201d Ian says. \u201cIt\u2019s not just a generic medieval setting. You\u2019re in the 15th century. You\u2019re fighting against Henry Bolingbrook \u2013 Henry IV \u2013 and his son, Henry V.\u201d This came as a shock to me because after watching the trailer, I fully assumed Kingmakers was a tongue-in-cheek action game about fighting medieval soldiers with modern weaponry, and while that is certainly the case, Ian is clearly passionate about history. He spends the next few minutes of our interview talking about that era of history, England\u2019s relationship with France at the time, and commiserating about how the 2018 Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet film The King<\/i> and Shakespeare\u2019s Henry V<\/i> both got the history wrong. \u201cIan likes to history-nerd out and go really deep,\u201d Paul says. \u201cWe do try to keep this accurate lore, and then you intervene. Then the idea is that \u2013 you know \u2013 you\u2019re altering history.\u201d<\/p>\n
And that historical intervention will apparently offer different outcomes. \u201cThe game has many endings,\u201d Paul confirms. The trailer does not go deep into the game\u2019s story, which is by design. The Fischs did not want to bog down potential players with lore in that first look. \u201cI don\u2019t think a trailer should start naming a bunch of proper nouns and places and characters,\u201d Ian says. But for those who do dive into Kingmakers when it releases, the story will be a driving force.<\/p>\n
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Despite the action of fighting medieval armies with modern weaponry, you will not be playing as a trained soldier. Instead, you are a member of a team of scientists who are trying to figure out what in the past led to the current-day apocalypse. Your team has invented a time machine that lets them see the world shift and change around them due to decisions made in the past. They learn they must unite England, Wales, Scotland, and \u201ca little bit of Ireland,\u201d as Ian phrases it, to prevent a terrible future. You\u2019re not an army with an unlimited government budget \u2013 you\u2019re a scientist trying to prevent present-day calamity.<\/p>\n
And it is possible to fail, or at least arrive at a very confusing finale. The trailer offers a tease of what appears to be an optimistic outcome in a futuristic city with cat-shaped floating ships, but everything is not as it seems. \u201cIf you pay close attention at the end, you\u2019ll see that that cat-ship opens up and just rains down human skulls and other bones. So, it\u2019s not exactly optimistic,\u201d Ian says.<\/p>\n
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