King's Bounty 2 was previously scheduled for a March release, but has now been delayed to August 24. Denis Maltzev, producer on King's Bounty 2, said in a press release, "We are currently at a stage where the game is complete and playable, but we need more time to finish playtesting, fixing, polishing, and postponing launch will give us the precious months to balancing phase, much needed for such important project for us, with its ambitious, open world, its complex narrative, deep Turn-Based Tactical and RPG mechanics."
The original King's Bounty was a 1990 turn-based strategy game by Jon Van Caneghem, who built on its formula in the Heroes of Might & Magic series. It was revived and rebooted by 1C Entertainment, who published King's Bounty: The Legend, developed by Katauri Interactive, in 2008. Several sequels and standalone expansions (or expandalones as normal people definitely call them) followed, though Katauri Interactive left after the well-received King's Bounty: Crossworlds in 2010, and subsequent games were developed by 1C.
King's Bounty 2 will be the first to significantly alter the format, exchanging mass battles for a smaller-scale fights with more obstacles and elevation, and the top-down overworld map for a third-person perspective. It's more of an RPG, with a story that apparently "blends beloved genre tropes with a gritty realism". Seems like there might be less opportunities to marry a demon, zombie, or frog than there was in the earlier, more whimsical, King's Bounty games.
King's Bounty 2 will be available on Steam, GOG, and the Epic Games Store.
