Circle of Doom 360 dated

By Tom Bramwell Published 20 September, 2006

Kingdom Under Fire in 2007.

Microsoft has said that Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom will be released in Q2 2007 on Xbox 360.

Developed by Blueside under series director Henry Lee, the latest Kingdom Under Fire title is described as "a truly next-generation Action-RPG" - a bit of a departure from its traditional action-strategy mould.

The game's previously been described as closer to Capcom's Devil May Cry than its predecessors. It's known to offer randomly generated dungeons above and below the ground.

Specific Xbox Live details have yet to be revealed, but Microsoft says you'll be able to play alone or recruit up to four team members.

Previously we've heard how the line between single-play and online is more or less gone.

"For instance, as you advance through the game in single-player, other players will enter online, and all of a sudden you will be in multiplayer," said Sangyoun Lee, president of Phantagram, which is publishing the game in Korea.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (11) Latest comment 5 years ago

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  • Dizzy #1 5 years ago

    "For instance, as you advance through the game in single-player, other players will enter online, and all of a sudden you will be in multiplayer,"

    Haha.. so it is happening. I wrote a very large article about that last year on EG and it is good to see finally developers making use of online console by completely blurring the line between offline and online.

  • kangarootoo #2 5 years ago

    Drop-in co-op seems to getting more popular in a few games.

    That said, in this particular case I'm not sure I see the difference between this and existing titles, other than in the semantics of how they describe their game modes. If I play any MMO and go wandering alone in the wilderness, it could be said that I am having a single player experience up until the point that other players wander into my vicinity.

    I'm not attacking this idea, I guess I am just supposing out loud in the absence of further info.

    EDIT: I should mention that I really liked the two previous KuF games, so I am looking forward to what this one will do.
    Edited by 1 at 20/09/06 @ 10:47

  • Fatnick #3 5 years ago

    Red circle of doom? Quite a few people have had that already...

  • rinoaMW #4 5 years ago

    "For instance, as you advance through the game in single-player, other players will enter online, and all of a sudden you will be in multiplayer,"

    Not if i don't have my ethernet cable plugged in, I don't...

    ;)

  • Dizzy #5 5 years ago

    "it could be said that I am having a single player experience up until the point that other players wander into my vicinity. "

    Well it doesn't even have to be interactive. Many ways that stuff like this can be done. Maybe you will just see items dropped/sold by other players? Or maybe you will just see them fighting in the background behind a gate? Etc.. etc... I can write 10 pages of ideas... Plenty of people working on ideas like this that would make single/multi player gaming to the next level.

    The concept that online gaming means coop or competitive is very much an wrong (and old) concept that makes no sense now that we have a unified online platform on 360 (and maybe on other consoles in the future). Plenty of things that can be done with online games and data. (well ok.. you *will* need broadband)
    Edited by 2 at 20/09/06 @ 11:34

  • kangarootoo #6 5 years ago

    @Dizzy

    Maybe I'm missing your point, but taking a pure definition of co-op or competitive, what other kind of interaction is there that isn't benign (and therefore pointless I would suggest). Either someone acts to benefit you, or they act to benefit themself at your expense, or they have no influence over you at all (which is the benign and pointless form I suggested above).

    Reading your post back, I'm still not clear. Are you saying that co-op and comp as concepts are wrong, or that the idea that they are wrong is what is wrong? I think a bit of a tidy up of your post might help :)

  • Dizzy #7 5 years ago

    I am just saying that co-op and competitive online are not the *only* way games can take advantage of online gameplay.

    Sadly games have focused a lot of versus gameplay since Quake... now co-op seems to be slowly growing but much more is possible.

    The actions/items of other players could appear in my Oblivion game for example without you ever meeting this anonymous player :)

    AI for example could be "online". For example a boss AI might learn based on meta-data that is gathered by a server based on how people fight him. Maybe some people have a flawless exploit/tactic for talking down this boss. No reason for the AI to adapt based on what is happening in other online versions of the game with other players and other skills/parties.

    Etc...
    Edited by 3 at 20/09/06 @ 13:12

  • kangarootoo #8 5 years ago

    Ah I get you.

    "For example a boss AI might learn based on meta-data that is gathered by a server based on how people fight him"

    Thats a very nice idea. Consider it recorded for future pinching :)

  • Hog-lumps #9 5 years ago

    For example a boss AI might learn based on meta-data that is gathered by a server based on how people fight him

    But wouldn't that result in a perfect and un-beatable boss? - scary!

  • Dizzy #10 5 years ago

    >But wouldn't that result in a perfect and un-beatable boss? - scary!

    Only if you want it... but I would use it to make strategy guides harder to help you :) That boss would always require new skills probably :)
    Edited by 1 at 20/09/06 @ 19:14

  • Scimarad #11 5 years ago

    Random Dungeons? Nooooooooo!!!