I’ve always thought the best RPGs are the ones where you have a home to come back to, to celebrate victory and plan your next – Pathfinder: Kingmaker, you get your own town. Released today, Kingmaker looks like familiar Baldur’s Gate-esque RPG adventuring, but with personal purpose. You’re securing your lands, and in-between quests you get to develop your burgeoning kingdom.

Based on the almost-D&D tabletop RPG Pathfinder (and its Kingmaker campaign series), the game was Kickstarted by devs Owlcat Games last June. Below, the launch trailer.

Kingmaker seems to have a different sense of scale to it than most RPGs. Your initial quest is to go and slay a bandit lord squatting on the edge of a kingdom – cue familiar real-time-with-pause tactical combat, dialogue and looting. As reward, you’ll be given the title of Baron (or Baroness) of the reclaimed land, and expected to re-settle the region using a town-building interface, placing individual buildings on a grid map. The original Kingmaker pen-and-paper campaign had this too, but I’ve heard it was overly fiddly. Hopefully this adaptation makes the process easier.



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The game takes place over five years, and decisions can shift your character alignment in that time, affecting the look and behaviour of your territory and its people – yes, you can be an evil overlord, if you want. While Kingmaker looks systems-heavy, but I’ve high hopes for the writing, as they’ve roped in Planescape: Torment’s Chris Avellone as narrative designer. As is par for the course for this wave of Baldur’s Gate-inspired RPGs, there’s some romantic story lines to pursue between territorial conquests, for those hankering to smooch on some goblins.

I hope to find the time to at least take a poke around Kingmaker in the near future, but I’m already drowning in RPGs, so have no idea how I’ll find the time. Plus, as is now-standard, Owlcat Games have also announced a season pass full of post-release adventures, though we don’t yet know what it’ll contain. And here I thought the 90s was supposed to be the golden age of the genre.

Pathfinder: Kingmaker is out now on Steam, Humble and GOG for £35/€40/$40, and is published by Deep Silver.