If you haven’t heard of Kingdom Under Fire 2, it’s probably because it’s been in development for so long that you’ve forgotten you heard about it a decade ago. This memory has been erased by a dozen other MMOs that have come and gone since then. Kingdom Under Fire 2 is an ambitious mash-up of MMO and action-RTS that’s been around for so long, already lived and died in two other regions, and finally debuted in North America and Europe last week.

Developer Blueside is confident that they’ve finally nailed this rare genre combination. The company is proud that they’ve spent over a decade and millions of dollars in development to create something unique that’s specifically tailored for Western gamers, and they’re not going to flinch from it.

Blueside isn’t wrong. Its combination of action and RTS is unique, and at least in the short time I’ve spent with it, it’s fun. Kingdom Under Fire 2 could have shocked the MMO genre with its unconventional mix if it had been released in 2009 as originally planned.

You have my Spellsword and my axe

I’m in the middle of the battle, fighting on the front lines surrounded by AI infantry with swords and shields. A giant enemy scorpion towers over us on four giant, armored legs. While my infantry attacks what I call the scorpion’s knuckles, I unleash my own special attacks. As a level 4 magic swordsman, I fight in close combat using sabre volleys and the occasional close-range lightning spell. It’s close to the satisfying, fast-paced combat of Black Desert, but the actual activity of pressing numbered buttons to activate abilities is exactly like 90% of other MMORPGs developed in the last 15 years.

At a glance, countless allies gather around me, searching for an enemy to thrust their swords at. It’s organized chaos. Or it would be if I remembered giving orders. Instead, I’m engrossed in the battle at hand, standing shoulder to shoulder with my troops to take down a giant armored beast. I’m pulled from the fray when I hear “Archers are ambushing!”

I press Tab to switch the game’s camera back to Tactical RTS mode, which shows the positions of all my troop groups. Kingdom Under Fire 2 limits you to three troops per encounter to allow players to manage RTS and action at the same time. Oops. My archer is actually getting ambushed.

I click on my infantry to make sure they keep attacking the house-sized scorpion, then tab again to return to the ground on my character’s shoulder. It’s the quick zoom from high to low that maintains the sense of urgency of the ongoing battle, and therein lies Kingdom Under Fire 2’s true success. The action combat takes place on the ground, but the transition from action to RTS is quick enough that I have the luxury of keeping both opinions in mind.

Kingdom Under Fire 2 Creative Director Jubo Kim explained how important it was to make this transition feel perfect during the Q&A session. “It may not sound like a big deal, but this played a very important role,” Kim said through Business Development Manager David Wang, who was translating. “When the camera view is on the hero, the player focuses only on the RPG aspect, but we wanted to provide a sensational RPG experience as well and ensure a perfect camera angle that promotes RTS. […] It was a big challenge to find the perfect view and how to change that view, but we eventually overcame it,” the Q&A session said, explaining that it was a key element that has changed over the years through trial and error.

I take on this mission alone and must defend myself against a group of long-limbed, finned creatures (similar to the alien Xenomorphs) called Encabrosians. Live play allows you to invite up to three other players with their own units into these instanced RTS missions. Even on its own, Kingdom Under Fire 2 gives me that feeling of epic scale of fantasy settings that every RPG player has been hoping for. I’ve always thought that the top-down view of RTS games was too far away to feel like a thrilling Lord of the Rings-style showdown, but Kingdom Under Fire 2 comes damn close, with flying beasts and giant scorpions thrown in for good measure.

As I progress through Kingdom Under Fire 2’s 50 story missions, I think I’ll continue to be impressed by the large and diverse army types present on the battlefield and how well this combination of genres works. There’s nothing comparable in other games in 2019. Unfortunately, the third component, the MMO, squanders this potential.

This kingdom’s on fire

As I sweep through a parade of enemies in Kingdom Under Fire 2, comparisons to Dynasty Warriors are inevitable. While the skill bar-based combat is more traditional MMORPG style than actual action, my Spellblade’s sword skill carries her towards enemies, slicing them in arcs that feel less rigid than the old traditional MMO action. On the other hand, her ability to create a lightning cone that has an effect forces her to stand still for the duration of the move, but it feels a bit too long without being able to cancel the attack midway.

It’s these details, and the open, freely accessible MMO areas, that make Kingdom Under Fire 2 truly show its age. Its interface is cluttered, and the version I had access to contained passages of untranslated Korean (some of which can still be found in the launched version). As is common in older games, his character animation is a bit creepy. KUF2 has been in development for over a decade, and small omissions like not being able to jump in the open world are minor complaints, but overall it feels like the MMO components have been left in the back of the closet and are outdated.

The free-roam sections, where you have to accept quests to gain experience and explore the world, feel textbook-like, but this textbook was the MMO template circa 2005. In 2019, asking you to kill five wolves feels just one step closer to the 30-50 boar meme. To be fair, almost every MMORPG starts with a variation of the same prompt. After the hour-long window I was able to play the preview, it seems likely that Kingdom Under Fire 2 will add more interesting open-world quests later in the story.

Even if that’s true, Kingdom Under Fire 2’s MMO and action-RTS sections are like oil and water in a glass: they’re forced to occupy the same space but never quite gel. Kingdom Under Fire 2’s instanced action-RTS battles looked interesting, with a good balance of melee and tactics that I enjoyed a lot. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that the open quest MMO sections would become just a chore between story missions, connective tissue that never quite found a reason to exist.

When talking with the developers about what KUF2’s endgame is like and how they want to keep players interested after the campaign is over, the MMORPG section doesn’t come up. Blueside cites daily co-op raids, especially earning additional troop types (out of 120 eventually) to replay missions, as the main motivation to keep playing. If Blueside and Gameforge are marketing a unique action-RTS experience with instanced co-op, why am I playing an MMO?

It’s clear that Kingdom Under Fire 2 had a rocky road to launch, with twists and turns along the way. Originally designed for a basic play model with microtransactions popular in Asia, this final version will be available for presale. Why didn’t Blueside cut their losses years ago and release a proper action RTS co-op campaign instead of an MMO RTS?

This may be a careful cherry-picking of the truth, but Blueside and its western publisher Gameforge publicly agree that the time spent over a decade modifying Kingdom Under Fire 2 was worth it, and they managed to create a mix of genres that could be considered unique. But by the time it reached the West Coast, it had already started and stopped in other regions. “I think the amount of time and resources we invested in making this speaks volumes about how committed we are to not only the franchise, but the creation of something entirely new with our latest instalment, Do Something All-New,” said Blueside CEO Sejung Kim in an email.

It’s hard to question Blueside’s dedication after so long in development. But after playing Kingdom Under Fire 2 at the launch event, I was no longer sure that the ambitious effort to create an “all-new” genre was worth keeping the best parts of KOF2 to myself for years. For a long time.