This bizarro action game is all about bringing guns to medieval swordfights

What you need to know

• Developer Redemption Road Games and publisher tinyBuild have announced Kingmakers, a game about a modern soldier who time travels back to the Middle Ages to alter history and prevent an apocalypse.
• The game blends real-time strategy with third-person shooter action, allowing you to seamlessly switch between commanding your armies and fighting alongside them with modern firearms and vehicles.
• Notably, the game will feature “next-gen multi-threaded AI” for the thousands of soldiers on its battlefields, as well as “a unique procedural animation system” and support for 3-player co-op.
• The developers plan to release Kingmakers in Steam Early Access later this year, and has plans to “open our gates to the community” with playtests and demos.

Every once in a while, you come across an upcoming game with a premise that’s so bizarre and goofy that you can’t help but be incredibly excited to eventually get your hands on it and see just how wacky it’ll be. That’s exactly how I feel about Kingmakers, a action-strategy sandbox game coming later this year in which you’ll play as a modern soldier who time travels back 500 years to the Middle Ages to alter the course of history and save the world.

Announced this morning, Kingmakers looks to fuse the army micromanagement of real-time strategy with chaotic over-the-shoulder third-person shooter mechanics. In one moment, you’ll be fighting alongside your bannermen with an array of modern firearms and vehicles. But with the press of a button, you can seamlessly transition into a top-down mode to command legions of cavalry, archers, swordsmen, and more, ordering them to charge into the fray, assault enemy fortifications, or defend your own.