Kingdom Under Fire: The Crusaders returning to Xbox

Microsoft will publish former NCsoft studio Phantagram's action-strategy game this fall.

Just hours after it announced two Japanese Xbox titles--Phantom Dust and True Fantasy Online--would never see American shores, Microsoft announced it will publish a Korean-made Xbox game, Kingdom Under Fire: The Crusaders. The game is being developed by Phantagram, the Seoul-based studio who split from its one-time owner, NCsoft, last Christmas. After the separation, it was unclear whether Crusaders was going to find another publisher.

Kingdom Under Fire: The Crusaders is set 50 years after its predecessor, the 2001 PC game Kingdom Under Fire: A War of Heroes. Like the original, it will feature a blend of real-time strategy and action game elements. The game will sport 60 different maps which will allow 150 units--drawn from over 100 different character types--to battle it out at the same time. Players will direct the warfare as a general of either the good humans or the self-evidently evil Dark Legions.

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