They’re not terrible demanding. On minimum settings, you’ll need either an i5-4690 or an FX-9370, along with either a GTX 970 or a Radeon RX 480. Meanwhile, on recommended requirements, that’s kicked up to either an i5-7400 or a Ryzen 7 1700X along with either a GTX 1060 or a Radeon RX 580. On both minimum and recommended requirements, you’re going to need 8 GB of RAM.

You can check out the full minimum and recommended requirements below.

King’s Bounty 2 launches on August 24 for PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch.

Minimum requirements:

• OS: Windows 10 64-bit
• Processor: Intel Core i5-4690 or AMD FX-9370
• Graphics: GeForce GTX 970 or AMD Radeon RX 480 (4 GB)
• Memory: 8 GB
• DirectX: Version 11
• Storage: 20GB HDD

Recommended requirements:

• OS: Windows 10 64-bit
• Processor: Intel Core i5-7400 or AMD Ryzen 7 1700X
• Graphics: GeForce GTX 1060 or Radeon RX 580 (6 GB)
• RAM: 8 GB
• DirectX: Version 11
• Storage: 20 GB SSD

As seen below, trying to overcome foes with brute strength in battle isn’t always the best option. Positioning and use of magic, with spell books akin to Heroes of Might and Magic, can often make a huge difference. Equipping different items, managing your troops (and mixing together units that can play off each other) and choosing different skills should also provide an advantage.

One’s decisions will also influence how the story plays out. For example, as Prince Adrian, you need to enter the castle and the most straightforward route is by talking to the palace guard. But perhaps you’ll ally with shadowy forces who lend some assassins to help in battle. You could also venture to a cemetery and run into the souls of the dead – retrieve a key item to pacify them and you’ll earn some undead soldiers for battle.

King’s Bounty 2 is out Xbox One, PS4, Nintendo Switch and PC on August 24th. Stay tuned for more details and gameplay en route to release.

Turn-based RPG tactics title King’s Bounty 2 has seen a delay. Originally set to release in March, it’s now coming on August 24th. Developer 1C Entertainment revealed this in the recent Epic Games Store Spring Showcase event and noted that content is “complete and playable.”

However, as producer Danis Maltzev noted, “We need more time to finish playtesting, fixing and polishing. The revised launch date will give us additional time for balancing, which is much needed for such an important project, with its ambitious open world, complex narrative and deep turn-based tactical and RPG mechanics.” Given the scale of the game, it’s understandable that more time would be needed.

As a sequel to the original King’s Bounty, which is been credited for inspiring the Heroes of Might and Magic series, King’s Bounty 2 is set in the world of Antara and offers one of three heroes to play with as they combat the Blight. Each has their own unique tale and ventures across the realm, taking on quests and fighting turn-based battles. Along the way, there will be different choices to make which can affect the story.

One of the biggest changes to combat is the presence of more realistic surroundings. Utilizing obstacles and elevation, players will gain different advantages over their foes, while also having to deal with any hindrances. Battles may also certain events pop up in the middle, forcing one to adapt on the fly.

King’s Bounty 2 will be releasing for Xbox One, PS4, PC and Nintendo Switch. Stay tuned for more details in the coming months.

"For us it’s very clear that we’re doing an adaptation of history, not a historical simulation."

What sort of a balance does Company of Crime strike between the historical fiction approach and telling a story completely of its own, given its setting?

For us it’s very clear that we’re doing an adaptation of history, not a historical simulation. History does play a big important role as the setting itself is very recognizable and we want the game to be also as recognizable as possible – that London in 1960s feel like London in 1960s. And it was one of the worst eras of organized crime. However already these two things are in conflict with any desire to be a historical simulation. Mods, lemonheads, rockers, rude boys, and others are very visual icons of the era, almost to the extent of Sean Connery’s Bond films, Morris Minis and miniskirts.

The criminal legends our game is based on are slightly less well known, but still at the very core of our game. But if we went for historical simulation then the game would lose its 1960s touch – because the criminals of the time dressed in an old-fashioned way and when you spend your time building or destroying criminal empires – it would not look 1960s London at all, but something older. A lot of gangsters in old-fashioned suits… So, we are okay with making hippies and mods and rockers unit classes in the game and therefore part of the organized crime (which they weren’t) where only the boss units look like the traditional gangsters.

This doesn’t mean we’d take history only as a side note. We want the game to feel authentic, but authentic on a wider scale. This rule of thumb is easier to explain now when the game is ready to launch than it was during the development. Some things were easy of course like the fact that we call skinheads lemon heads because they hadn’t yet become the racists they’re known as nowadays and shared black Caribbean immigrants’ fondness for ska music. Therefore, lemon heads and rude boys are often found in the same criminal gangs. But other things were harder – like the subplot that goes underneath players progression. Should it tie together with the Troubles or would that change the tone of the game to too serious? We’re not going for Austin Powers, but rather a Guy Richie-feel, so involving IRA in the subplot – is that a good idea or not? There are remnants of this discussion in the game, but at in quite a changed state.

I imagine being able to play through the entire game from both sides – which are essentially polar opposites of each other – must introduce a lot of variety and replayability to the game. What should players expect in that area? 

The two big differences between the two campaigns is how the progression works and how the tactical missions play out. In criminal campaigns, the progression basically means you get first some businesses under your protection, you coerce ownership some of them to unlock new stuff, and expand to new areas – face other criminal gangs and try to beat them and get more businesses to unlock more stuff.

The police campaign is more reactive. You need to place your sergeants to find out suspicious locations and sometimes the AI is conducting crime there, so when you find criminal activity, you can do stakeout missions. But the ultimate thing on the police side is that you a) want to find out suspicious locations, b) find out who owns it (in other words, is the owner a victim of extortion or part of criminal families?), and c) you want to gather evidence against the criminal families so you can raid their place and make them “civilian owned”. This means you will have to wait, place sergeants carefully, increase safety in the area, and strike only when you have enough evidence. On the criminal side you can progress more easily whenever you feel like you’re strong enough.

On tactical missions, criminals have to worry about the heat – the measurement when police are called. And if police are called, they have to collect any items they’ve dropped during the mission, so police won’t have a clue who was there. Or maybe they have a clue, but not hard evidence, at least. And when playing the police side, the missions take place when crime is already on-going. So you’re often coming to places where either two criminal families are fighting one another or beating civilians to paying protection money. While you don’t have heat or evidence to worry about, your main targets are the boss units, as arresting those helps you bring down organized crime. And you can’t be the first one to shoot, and if you kill unarmed or lightly armed criminals, you’ll get punished.

"It’s the cultural capital of the world in the 1960s – even the worst criminals can’t go around killing people, or their underworld careers would come to a fast end."

How much does playing through the game as a criminal differ from playing through it as a Scotland Yard officer? Other than the story itself, will the experiencing of playing as them be different in terms of gameplay as well, with things such as progression, abilities, and the like?

Yes, indeed, the progression is completely different. As criminals, you try to get businesses under your control and that unlocks new stuff. As the police, every promotion you earn unlocks more stuff, and promotions are tied to the progression you’ve made. So criminals have more a flexible reward system – that’s also why we force player to at least start with that campaign. The police campaign lets you experience the same story from a different perspective, learn more about the subplot, and get more variation to the gameplay. But to understand the police campaign better, you need to play criminal campaign first.

How does the heat mechanic function exactly? Does Company of Crime encourage non-combative gameplay?

Non-lethal gameplay, yes. It’s the cultural capital of the world in the 1960s – even the worst criminals can’t go around killing people, or their underworld careers would come to a fast end.

Heat has basically two levels. In tactical missions, the more violent and loud you are, the more heat you accumulate. In other words, knocking someone unconscious with a knuckleduster is not so bad as stabbing someone dead with a knife. Taking out your guns causes more heat than just a brawl, and the endgame machine guns are the worst. And every time your accumulated heat crosses a threshold, the police are called. You might be able to beat the first bobbies that arrive, but attacking a police officer is a certain way to cause even more heat. So usually when someone calls the cops, you’re better off wrapping things up, trying to finish the mission or even abort at some cases.

Depending on how well or badly you did in tactical missions, you will accumulate heat on to the strategy map. And there, the more heat you have, the more police will be after you. Arresting key people, raiding your places, being faster to enter tactical missions when you’re conducting crime – those are a few key elements to heat – but the main thing is that it will end your career if you accumulate too much heat.

Some locations accumulate less heat, where gunfights are less of a worry.

Progressing through levels in Company of Crime is structured is very interesting, with collection of evidence, for instance, being an important part of the process after you’ve committed a crime. Can you speak more about that, and how much of what players do in that stage affects things going forward?

Collecting evidence will indeed change the dynamics in a mission quite a bit. This is quite typical in mid- to end-game situation: You attack your rival gang to earn respect among the citizens so you can perform coerce ownership missions in the new area you’re expanding to. The point is just to beat them up, but then you’re winning, and the enemy takes out the guns and a brawl turns in to a gunfight. You can leap forward to try and disarm the enemies, take cover and start shooting yourself, or abort. You’re doing one or the other and the police are called. You fail to wrap up in time and the police arrives, and then the game reveals where your units have dropped items that would work as evidence against you. So now you’re in a hurry to finish your mission – just that one last guy somewhere, but you also have to hurry back to unconscious enemies where you dropped your wallet before the police arrests you.

So basically, if you leave behind evidence, it equals to having accumulated a lot of heat and having several police groups arrived at the scene.

In a police raid on a criminal place, you (as a criminal) either have to collect the evidence that reveals your wrongdoings (book keeping, drugs, etc) and burn it or flush it before the cops arrest you, or (as police) prevent the criminals from doing that. That dictates if criminals lose the location or not, so even getting your unit arrested and temporarily out isn’t as bad as leaving that evidence to the cops.

"If the game sells well, we have made sure it works on controllers, so expanding to other platforms is another one of our future hopes for the project."

How much flexibility and depth does Company of Crime offer in its management side of the gameplay?

It’s difficult to give any concrete depth value, but it’s doing all right. There are system driven games and there are design driven games. The first is where system simulation aims to create meaningful content in itself – that code bits collide with other code-bits and provide meaningful outcomes. The latter is were mechanics are more designed to create desired feeling of the game world, but that you can’t vary as endlessly as system driven games. System driven games are more time consuming to make and to balance. Our philosophy has been to design the mechanics so that it feels right, but it won’t be endlessly replayable. We hope that if the gamers find our game in large enough proportions, we could expand the experience with additional content, but at the moment those are plans that we keep at the back of our mind.

Roughly how long will an average play through of Company of Crime be?

12-20 hours per campaign, depending on the difficulty level a bit. The criminal campaign is longer than the police campaign.

Why did you decide to launch as a PC exclusive?

Strategy games are biggest in the PC space, so that is an obvious choice. Our team has only limited experience with console development, so it was easier to propose the game as PC first. If the game sells well, we have made sure it works on controllers, so expanding to other platforms is another one of our future hopes for the project.

Do you have any plans to launch on the Switch or any of the other current-gen consoles?

No plans, but plenty of hopes and wishes.

Given that next-gen consoles are right around the corner, have you given any thought to next-gen ports for the game?

No, not yet.

"We played a lot of RPGs before producing Eternity and tried to bring a lot of things from the classics."

You’ve said that Eternity: The Last Unicorn is a game that caters to classic RPGs- can you elaborate on that a bit?

We played a lot of RPGs before producing Eternity and tried to bring a lot of things from the classics.

The crafting system, a bit of grinding (it’s definitely encouraged a bit because of items drop and leveling). You may end in a difficult fight and the Kingdom will be open for you to come back and prepare yourself a little bit more.

We made the game with the idea to bring the nostalgic felling for the classic gamers, so we build the paths, the fights, the puzzles, all with this in mind.

How did you come to the decision to use fixed cameras in the game?

The answer to this question complements the previous one. The fixed camera was very present in the classic games like Onimusha and first Resident Evils. So we work on that system, bringing some changes to give the players the nostalgic feeling combined with modern mechanics to make the game feel fresh. So the camera is fixed, but sometimes we add some movement on it, you do not control this movements but it is there to help you in a combat or specific situations.

How much do the two playable characters differ from each other?

Starting from the combat, the Elf has a sword and a bow so we have ranged combat while the Warrior is a bit stronger and uses sword with shield and two-handed sword. This will bring some different combos and methods of fighting against enemies and Bosses.

Each character will have his/her inventory, their unique abilities and assets to interact during the gameplay. Also some NPCs only talk to a specific character as well.

How long can players expect Eternity: The Last Unicorn to be, in terms of gameplay hours?

About 12 hours of gameplay.

"We created the combat to be challenging but not too complex."

Were there any stories across any media – other than the mythology itself, of course – that have perhaps served as inspirations?

There is! Tolkien stories are always an inspiration for us, we love Lord of the Rings and what they did for movies and games.

Related to games, I think two that inspired us the most to produce Eternity were Zelda and the Souls series (Demons Souls/Dark Souls).

Can you talk to us a bit about how combat is structured in Eternity: The Last Unicorn?

We created the combat to be challenging but not too complex. The enemies are divided into different classes like Healer, Berserker or Mage, so you will find different groups of enemies strategically positioned to make combat more interesting. And if you just smash the button you will probably get killed sooner or later.

You can find new weapons and abilities during the gameplay which also brings some changes to the system. For example some enemies have a barrier that can only be broken by magic weapons (as is the case of your bow).

The enemies will become more dangerous as you advance in gameplay, so it’s important to use some of your time leveling and preparing for what’s to come.

How much of an emphasis on exploration can players expect to see?

There is a good amount of exploration during the gameplay, you will find new places and important treasures hiding in the Kingdom. Some of these places you can only find after getting a specific skill or weapon. It’s up to the player if he wants to explore or not but definitely those who explore will find great rewards.

"We would love to have Eternity on Nintendo Switch, but we can’t confirm anything yet."

How do progression mechanics work in the game?

We tried to make everything growing together with the player, so the enemies will become stronger, the puzzles will become more difficult, you will find new weapons and abilities that will need to be used in order to advance or to defeat a particular enemy. About your levelling it’s tricky because it depends of how you are playing, but if you find yourself in trouble you can always go back a little bit to grab more items, do some craft and level up your character.

Do you have any plans to launch on other systems?

We would love to have Eternity on Nintendo Switch, but we can’t confirm anything yet. At the moment we are focusing only on the platforms we have already announced (PC, PS4, Xbox One).

Will the game will feature Xbox One X specific enhancements? What can players expect if they are playing the game on Xbox One X? Is 4K/60fps on the cards?

This was something that initially we wanted to do, but due to some technical issues this wasn’t possible to happen.

And how will the PS4 Pro version turn out in terms of resolution and frame rate?

This is the same as with Xbox One X. Due to technical issues this wasn’t possible to happen.

From a development perspective, how do you find the Xbox One X to be and how do you compare it with the PS4 Pro?

We didn’t have the chance to try these yet, but we are excited to make some tests in the future.

How is the game running on the original Xbox One and PS4, frame rate and resolution wise?

It’s full HD and we’ve frozen the frame rate to 30 to guarantee the gameplay experience.

"Speaking as a player, I would love to play with my friends independently of our platform choice."

Next gen is coming sooner or later. From a development perspective, what is your biggest expectation from PS5 and Xbox Scarlett?

We’ll have to wait until there is official information on this, so for now I can only speak based on the rumours we read here and there. But, we are sure that the next generation will be even bigger than the current one. Our expectation is to be able to produce even better games and make use of the new features that are coming, also that is a lot of promises on cross-play, so I am curious to see what we can do with this feature.

Do you think cross-platform will be one of the defining features of PS5 and Xbox Scarlett?

As a developer I can’t say for sure, we need to see first something official and do a few tests on it, for now we can only speculate what the next gen consoles will offer to the players and developers. Speaking as a player though, I would love to play with my friends independently of our platform choice.

What is your take on Sony’s reluctant policy on cross-play with Xbox?

It’s a choice and if it is not something temporary they must bring something to supply this request of the players. In any case we think cross-play is a great idea for all the players.

Do you think Microsoft is missing out by not investing in VR? Furthermore, do you think the next Xbox will lack VR support?

We never tried VR, we can see that’s something that may become strong in the future, but for now we are not too much into it, so we don’t think Microsoft will have troubles because of that.

What is your take on the ongoing drama of loot boxes and microtransactions?

Speaking as a player myself, I agree that the best way to play a game is pay for the entire game and accessing everything. We understand that this kind of thing is suitable for free-to-play games, and that the developer needs to make money somehow, but it’s not something I like.

The matter of cross-play is something that has been trailing Sony in some form or another for some time now, and was most recently kicked up into a frenzy when several devs called them out on their practices- practices they would go on to deny indulging in. Sony remains adamant that following the success Fortnite has seen with cross-play enabled on the PS4 with all platforms, they are now more open to doing it for other games as well.

But is that something that will carry over into the next console generation? Recently, we interviewed Luiz Aguena, CEO of Void Studios and lead developer on their recently released RPG Eternity: The Last Unicorn, and we asked him about his thoughts on whether he thinks cross-platform play will be a defining feature of the upcoming console generation. His answer? He definitely hopes so.

“As a developer I can’t say for sure, we need to see first something official and do a few tests on it, for now we can only speculate what the next gen consoles will offer to the players and developers,” said Aguena. “Speaking as a player though, I would love to play with my friends independently of our platform choice.”

Sony’s stubborn stance on cross-play and their recent reluctance to fully bring down the walls is, according to Aguena, a choice of their own making, and he feels that they’ll need to come up with alternative solutions to placate fans if it’s not a temporary choice. “It’s a choice and if it is not something temporary they must bring something to supply this request of the players,” he said. “In any case we think cross-play is a great idea for all the players.”

Sony has stated that it’s willing to enable cross-play on its platforms, and though there’s been plenty of evidence to suggest that that may not be the case, we can always hope that they eventually hold true to their word.

Our full interview with Aguena will be going live soon, so stay tuned.