Romance of the Three Kingdoms XI dated

By Robert Purchese Published 4 August, 2008

Koei offers small PC demo as taster.

Koei has clarified the Romance of the Three Kingdoms XI date on PC and popped out a demo so we would notice.

The game will be out on 5th September, rather than the following Monday as we had once thought.

The demo is small at 280 MB, and can be gobbled up from the official Romance of the Three Kingdoms XI website.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms XI is a strategy game set in ancient China, and not some themed series of naughty films we thought we had seen sometime, somewhere, with someone.

The challenge is to unite the region by various political and military manoeuvring, otherwise known as ordering quirky general to stomp on enemy general, only with historical significance.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (8) Latest comment 4 years ago

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  • DFawkes #1 4 years ago

    Awesome, although I got this demo ages ago. I don't come to EG for promptness though, I come for... actually, I have no idea. I like it here though.

  • sunjumper #2 4 years ago

    So is the demo any good?

  • UncleLou #3 4 years ago

    Are you sure you don't mean ... um, that other Koei game?

    /looks it up

    Warriors Orochi. That's what I played a demo of a few months ago.
    Edited by 1 at 04/08/08 @ 19:01

  • Flaptastic #4 4 years ago

    I used to love Romance of the Three Kingdoms...I think my favorite was around III. Sadly, after playing the last iteration I wanted to see nothing more than a graceful death for this venerated series. Koei just doesn't seem to understand the concept of 'core gameplay' and how that applies to this series as they littered later versions with ill-concepted minigame fluff that only served to distract from an epic empire-building game. That, and they have no F'ing idea on how to design an fun, user-friendly interface.

    Sadly, outside of Stardock I don't think any companies are filling this niche anymore. Oh well, I guess such a intellectual game is lost on a mainstream audience.

  • hiddenranbir #5 4 years ago

    Zzz, Koei lost the plot after their nth title.
    Edited by 1 at 05/08/08 @ 12:17

  • Meho #6 4 years ago

    Warriors Orochi was horrible on PC.. So, um, all I'm saying, this demo better deliver it. In spades!

  • DFawkes #7 4 years ago

    I preferred RottK 3 most, on the SNES. I loved the music, and hadn't played anything even remotely like it at the time. Plus it has plenty of depth.

    Most versions after that haven't really improved anything, just tarted the visuals up and changed the world map. It's ideal for PC though, a mostly menu driven game is begging for mouse controls - although I'm just assuming it has mouse controls, I downloaded Dynasty Warriors Online at the same time and forgot about the demo entirely.

    Just to make it crystal clear, this is not one of the Warriors series, not even slightly. Sure, it's set in the same period of chinese history, but that's it. It's a strategy game, with turn-based combat. Don't expect Dynasty Warriors.

  • Veracity #8 4 years ago

    "Koei just doesn't seem to understand the concept of 'core gameplay' and how that applies to this series as they littered later versions with ill-concepted minigame fluff that only served to distract from an epic empire-building game."

    Last one I have is PS2 VIII, which I rated pretty highly. Its emphasis on having to "be" one of the characters is fairly heavy (and you can choose to be a relative grunt and work your way up to advisor, or whatever) - this looks like slightly more of a disembodied overseer player role. I think I kind of like the "minigame fluff", though. Part of the appeal of the series to me is its eccentric campiness and the impact of daft, over-the-top personalities - the debate stuff from the trailer looks hilarious, and isn't the sort of thing I object too as distracting, unbalancing, or "not serious enough".

    I think the grotesque inaccessibility gets exaggerated because it's (originally) on a platform that doesn't really do this genre. It's fairly strategy-lite compared to scary grognard-targeted PC games. Quite tempted to give it a shot, despite not really having time for it, and the apparent consensus among many who've been keeping up with the series that it's lost the plot.