Kingmakers is a third-person shooter laid over a real-time strategy game. On foot you fight with modern weapons; from the strategy view you build a settlement, recruit an army and send it at castles, and you can switch between the two whenever you like. This page follows the developers’ Gameplay Deep Dive in order, with the timestamp for each claim.
On this page 7 sections
The question the game is built on
“What if you brought modern weapons to the Middle Ages in order to rewrite history?”
The strategy viewThe strategy view from above, with unit icons and a red boundary running across the map. Frame at 1:30 in the Gameplay Deep Dive, tinyBuildGAMES.
On footOn foot behind a column of armoured soldiers, with the minimap in the corner. Frame at 1:46 in the Gameplay Deep Dive, tinyBuildGAMES.
“You’re not just a foot soldier in Kingmakers. You’re responsible for the army itself using an interface similar to games like Age of Empires, Stronghold, or Manor Lords.”
“At any point, you can switch to the strategy view. From here, you can give orders, construct buildings, commission officers, and call up new levies of soldiers.”
The store page describes the same thing in one line, “Seamlessly switch between combat and issuing orders, at any time.” If you are wondering how that works on a controller, the director has said pads are intended but may not be ready at launch; see Kingmakers controller support. On moving between the two halves he says “You can freely move back and forth between action and issuing orders basically always.” How hard the fights are meant to be is on how hard Kingmakers is. How missions are picked, and how big the map you play them on is meant to be, is on the Kingmakers campaign map.
Why third person, not first person
The shooter half was not always the view it ships with. A player asked why Kingmakers is third person rather than first person, given the trend in modern shooters, and the director explained the switch happened during development, for reasons specific to fighting alongside an army rather than alone:
PPaul Fisch Game director, replying on the Steam forum
“Originally the game was in first person. It turns out that having no peripheral vision in a massive medieval battle is actually not so great. You are constantly getting attacked at angles that are outside of your vision.”
“Also it is very hard to maintain battlefield awareness in first person because your viewing angle is so much lower to the ground. You can’t see over the heads of all the soldiers in the battle to realize when your left flank is failing, or your archers are getting slammed by cavalry.”
“It is just a much better experience in 3rd person.”
That is a design answer about awareness in a crowd, not a claim that first person was cut for performance; how the studio gets that crowd on screen at all is on Kingmakers performance.
The Deep Dive, chapter by chapter
Choose a chapter to set the video’s starting point. The descriptions summarise the developers’ narration; use the related guide for the full answer.
Kingmakers - Gameplay Deep Dive Official video on the tinyBuildGAMES YouTube channel.
That is the loop that ties the two halves together. Looting and holding territory funds the shooter side, and the shooter side is what lets a small army beat a much bigger one.
Building and holding a settlement
A wall being placed in the strategy view, shown in green before it is built. Frame at 1:40 in the Gameplay Deep Dive, tinyBuildGAMES.
“When establishing a new settlement in hostile territory, you’re responsible for building farms, lumber mills, and other structures to get your economy up and running.”
The pinned developer update before the video added that players can now build walls around a base, and that enemies can break them down. Who you recruit to hold those walls is on Kingmakers units and officers, and the buildings the developers have named, with how sieges work, are on Kingmakers base building.
What the video does not say
The announcement listed “enemy waves” among the topics, but the narration never uses the word. The only wave talk on record is the director describing an endless horde mode built to speed up balancing, which he said might become part of the game. Asked about it again months later, spelled “hoard mode” by the player who asked, his answer was shorter: “Eventually, yes”.
No release date, price or platform, and no Early Access roadmap beyond the launch size.
Anything that is only visible on screen. This page lists what is spoken; details that appear in the footage without being described are left out rather than guessed at.
