We visited the second demonstration of King's Bounty II - the long-awaited sequel to the founder of the whole genre, the work on which the craftsmen from 1C have almost finished. We learned new entertaining details, saw the updated graphics, and we really want to share our impressions with you.

Recall that King's Bounty 2 is an independent project, which, although it will have some parallels with previous Katauri Interactive friv games, is mostly focused on the legendary original by John Van Kanegem in 1990, released by New World Computing.

The game takes place in the world of Antara, when the gloomy news of an attempt on the life of the ruling monarch Claudius sweeps over the picturesque continent of Nostria. In a kingdom of unrest, the magistrate cannot share power with the council, there are riots in the streets, bandits rampage on the highways, and then there are refugees driven out by some new gloomy scourge.

We are talking about the great nothingness of Death - an entity that invaded from the outside in order to completely dry up Antara, absorb all the power of creation that fills the matter of this world. The lands tainted with this corruption do not penetrate the sunlight, and all life on them fades and loses its colors.

Last time I told how at the beginning of the friv game a mysterious Soothsayer appears to the hero accused of killing the king, who promises him great achievements and guides him along the way. At the gates of the capital, in the second game location, we will again meet a mysterious figure in a hood, and this time he will explain the rules of the friv game.

It turns out that this is not the first time that Death has come to Antara. This has happened hundreds and thousands of years ago. And so far, brave heroes have managed to hold it back. A portal will open behind the Soothsayer and once inside the hero will become not just a witness, but a participant in one of the battles with the scum of the void.

The first quest, introducing players to the mechanics of "trials", will take the hero to the third era, when the Dwarf King Dimir challenged the Bane. He will have to fight the infected on his behalf, his army will be in submission, and since the laws of time have no power over Death, victory will clear a piece of land in the present Antara from filth, the surrounding landscape will change.

By the way, visually the friv game began to look even better. We walked around the capital of Nostria, went beyond the city walls. If earlier the world abounded with colors, and the drawing distance allowed you to enjoy the landscapes of even neighboring locations, now Antara is also breathing.

The townspeople scurry along the cozy streets, immersed in their worries, discussing something. The wind shakes the dense greenery on the trees, plucks individual leaves and circles them over the square. The atmosphere in King's Bounty 2 is very cozy and viscous, it simultaneously exudes graphic novelty and old-school role-playing games with a third-person view.

The feeling is quite unusual when you wander through such a bright, meaningful world and from time to time you are drawn into the good old tactical turn-based combat. By the way, it is not as classic as it might seem at first glance.

Skirmishes, for example, take place not in a randomly generated zone, but right where you met the enemy, and terrain features, such as differences in heights or large, impenetrable objects on the field, expand the horizons for strategic maneuvers.

PR and 1C brand manager Ilia Svanidze hinted that the development team is now considering whether to introduce the ability to reset talent points or additional difficulty levels into the friv game. However, the enemies already demonstrate a serious attitude in battle.

The enemy AI is quite smart, able to isolate the weak links in the player's squad and use the environment to hide troops from long-range attacks or gain positional advantage. “Before any battle, it’s good to save,” Elijah jokes.

In the second demo, we ran through several sidequests. Here, as in the projects of Katauri Interactive, the plots turned out to be interesting, and there was some humor, and they enrich the picture of the world. What's more, most tasks can indeed be accomplished in a variety of ways.

For example, in the quest about the magic crystal stolen from the aqueduct, the heroes will meet the dead knight Valiant, the keeper of the cemetery desecrated by the thief Garret, to which the dead, frightened by Death, dragged away the magic little thing.

Players will have to decide whether they will go in search of the thief and the relic he stole from the cemetery, or take the crystal from the undead, take it to the sorcerers and, as a result, engage in battle with an impressive army of the dead.

In the same task, we see another curious fact - there is no causeless evil in King's Bounty 2. The developers have thought over the motivation even for the army of the walking dead, which in the end is very harmoniously combined with the system of ideals.

The Friv2Online Studio project seems to be very intriguing and overall looks complete but is still in the final stages. However, the wait is not so long - already on August 24, 2021, King's Bounty 2 will be released globally on PS4, Xbox One, PC and Nintendo Switch, and a little later, the authors will adapt the friv game for next-generation consoles.