PATHFINDER: KINGMAKER gets a release date

Pathfinder: Kingmaker, an expansive computer RPG set in the signature Pathfinder world of Golarion, will be out on 25 September this year.

Kingmaker is a Baldur's Gate-inspired CRPG which allows you to both take part in traditional roleplaying activities, like quests, monster-slaying, dungeon-delving and romances, but adds on a strategic layer of realm management (similar to the old Birthright setting for Dungeons and Dragons). As you progress through the Stolen Lands - a sort of unclaimed no-man's land in the middle of the River Kingdoms (the pen-and-paper incarnation of which was contributed to by China Mieville, slightly randomly) - you gain more control and influence over the local population, allowing you to build a town and rule over it as a tyrant or a benevolent ruler. As the game progresses your influence over the region grows.

The game's storyline was co-written by the omnipresent Chris Avellone, who has contributed to games including Fallout 2, Planescape: Torment, Icewind Dale, Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer, Knights of the Old Republic II, Fallout: New Vegas, Alpha Protocol, Wasteland 2, Torment: Tides of Numenera, Divinity: Original Sin II and the forthcoming Dying Light 2.

Pathfinder was, for a while, the world's most popular pen-and-paper roleplaying game. Created as an alternative to the unpopular Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition (which not so much threw the baby out with the bathwater but hurled it into orbit), Pathfinder developed from the D&D 3rd Edition rules and sold many hundreds of thousands of copies. After the release of the considerably better-received D&D 5th Edition, Pathfinder lost its crown for a while but is now looking to reclaim the spotlight with a 2nd Edition of its own game rules, a recently-released SF variant (Starfinder) and now its first spin-off video game.