Kingdom Under Fire 2: Taking a Deeper Look

Finding a good MMO in this day and age isn’t really that difficult, despite what some people would have you believe. You wanna know what is difficult? Finding an MMO that does something different.
An MMO that really sets itself apart from what you’re used to and offers you something contrary to the norm. Something unique – that isn’t really done in the scene. That’s where Kingdom Under Fire 2 comes in.
Now, I did my first video on the game back at the end of November, where I went into detail about the introductory experience, how everything looked and felt, and I spoke about how the first couple hours of the game were.
This time, I want to take a bit of a deeper look while talking about the game, and even the genre as a whole. So if I were you I’d go grab a snack.

So if you never saw my first Kingdom Under Fire 2 part then the game is an MMORTS: A real-time strategy game with MMORPG themes.
It’s one of the only MMOs of its kind – an amalgamation, for lack of a better word, between several genres – all of which I’m quite enthralled with.

Now when I did my first impressions playthrough of the game, I noted that it was very MMO-esque, with players partying up and questing together much like you normally would in any traditional MMO.
And that was more or less how the first hour or two was, with a few RTS-style tutorial battles in-between.
However, after making it further through the game Mrs Stix and I quickly learned that while yes, there is your traditional questing system in-game, more and more content took place in large-scale battles.
This was something I didn’t touch on nearly enough initially when playing and I’m glad I had the opportunity to play through several battles without any form of hand-holding this time.
Not only that, but I got to participate in those very battles with Mrs Stix so we got to see first-hand how co-operative battles would work.

Let me start off by saying that those battles were significantly more fun with another person.
See, where normally you’d tackle battles with AI controlled characters and soldiers, instead, Mrs Stix and I both went in with our own characters and soldiers we could each control separately.
Since we sit side-by-side, this meant that we could very easily communicate what we were doing at each point in the battle. We could split our forces up, tackle different sides of the field and easily direct one another to where we were needed.
Or, there were times where one of us didn’t see something and pointed it out so the other could appropriately respond. I cannot begin to explain how cool that is.
Being able to do all of this with a character you level outside of these battles, with the battle’s difficulty changing drastically depending on your gear, your level, your troop choice means that it is paramount you come in prepared.

I’ve never been all that fond of upgrading or crafting in MMOs. I typically play games that don’t require upgrading like World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy XIV because I hate investing time and money into upgrades that fail repeatedly.
To me that’s a waste. I know a lot of people enjoy crafting as well, but I never have the time available to invest into professions so I generally have someone take care of my crafting for me as well.
And while you don’t necessarily have to craft in Kingdom Under Fire 2, you are required to upgrade your units.
You have a plethora of different unit types capable of being taken into battle with you, too many for me to even begin to name.
But each and every unit has individual levels, upgrade possibilities that require different items, and make customizing your force actually pretty fun.
I’m a huge fan of the Total War games, but one thing I always thought would make them much more engaging would be an RPG aspect like Kingdom Under Fire 2 employs.
I love that I get to insert my own character into this world. A character that I created, a character that I customized.
I love that instead of being a “faceless general,” instead, I get to have a physical embodiment of my thoughts and.. well, okay, granted there are a lack of physical similarities between the two of us. But you get where I’m going with this.

After making it far enough through the game I made it to the very first large town. I’m not sure exactly how many there are, or if this is more of a hub than anything, but man. The city itself is gorgeous. You wouldn’t think this was a game released 8 years ago.
But I digress. The town itself functions as a means of taking quests, socializing with other players or showing off all that sweet swag.
What I first noticed was after leaving, there was kind of a world map in a sense. One that you can navigate via your airship. This was not at all what I was expecting – honestly, I didn’t know the method of exploration, but I was.. surprised.
You can freely move your airship over the map, moving from area to area, engaging in different battles.
I didn’t have enough unlocked to fully gauge exactly how much of the world were instanced battles and how many were settlements, but you can bet Mrs Stix and I did as many battles as we could.
I feel as though that’s one of Kingdom Under Fire 2’s key selling points after all, and I couldn’t press any further than I already have how much I enjoy them.

There are a lot of mechanics to learn if this is the first time you’ve played a game like this. Thankfully, I had a general understanding of what I was doing and had no issue aiding Mrs Stix if she was ever overwhelmed.
Overall, I enjoyed the first couple introductory hours of the game. But the next several hours where you finally obtain control to play what you want, how you want was much more engaging and fun overall for me.

I plan on doing a third video next month where I can hopefully touch on the game a little more.
Until then, again, if you wanna go ahead and download the game, use my link in the description and pinned comment to be taken directly to it!