Crusader Kings II: The Old Gods has just been announced, and will add playable pagans and Zoroastrians to Paradox's grand medieval strategy sandbox. It's fair to say I was just a tiny bit out of my mind excited. Some notable new features include an extension of the timeline back to 867 A.D., and (sadly unplayable) landless adventurers who set out with their bands of warriors to found new kingdoms in true Viking fashion. I got to raid the brain-villages of Chris King, one of the expansion's designers. Read on to share in the knowledge I plundered.

One tidbit I picked up not included in this interview: 867 will be a stand-alone start date. Unlike the rest of CK2's timeline, you won't be able to advance the clock day by day between 867 and 1066. This, unfortunately, means you won't be able to play as some of the intervening figures such as Brian Boru, the legendary Irish king who founded the house I played as in the first Crusader Kings Chronicle.

PC Gamer: Does The Old Gods make all of the pagans playable? Including, say, the Mongols?

Chris King: Yes.

Will there be different flavor events for the different types of pagans?

At the moment, we've been focusing in on the Norse pagans. So as a Norse pagan, you can now erect a runestone in your honor, we have these little things like that. And you can also go a-viking. So you can set yourself up for a big invasion of somewhere.

And then we're going to try to go through all the other pagans and see what we can do with them. So we've kind of been talking about giving, like, the Baltic pagans maybe defensive bonuses or these kinds of things. But we're going to look at each pagan in turn and say, what can we do to bring them out and make them interesting?

"So, just because you've kicked out the guy who claims your title...doesn't mean he's not a threat."
So, the Norse will be the most fleshed-out.

Yes. Well, Norse is our first one. We've actually changed the cultures. So Scandinavia is now "Norse" culture at game start . There's no Danes, Swedes, and Norwegians. And then they will split up into the three.

Is that an event that happens randomly?

Well, it's an event. I'm not sure how random it is.

Do the playable pagans include the Aztecs from Sunset Invasion?

Yeah, the Aztecs will be playable. So I think you can actually tag into them when the Sunset Invasion arrives if you want to. If you decide you want a cruising mid-late game, you can always take over that invasion.

Have you guys figured out who the Interesting Characters are going to be for 867?

Well, the reason we picked 867 is that there was a moment—it was called the Great Heathen Army. And it arrived in York in 866. So you have this heathen army. They're the sons of Ragnar Lodbrok. So you have Ivar the Boneless, Halfdan, Bjorn Ironside— and these were the sons of Lodbrok. At least one of them will be an Interesting Character. It's also a kind of symmetry thing. Because we started in 1066, you have a pack of Norwegians parked in York. So if you start in 867 you have a pack of, I think they're mainly Danes and Swedes now, parked in York.



Have you thought about, beyond the Norse, which rulers you want to highlight in 867?

Not yet, but I think it's the grandsons or great-grandsons of Charlemagne in Central Europe. So they'll definitely be ones to play around with.

So the landless adventurers you mentioned aren't actually playable?

No, not as far as I know. Basically, the adventurer system is not fully implemented yet. So it's in our progression. But our idea is, landless characters can be a danger to you. So just because you've kicked out the guy who claims your title—he doesn't have any land—doesn't mean he's not a threat. Our goal is to try and tie them in with rebels. So rebels will now rebel for a title claimant.

So, is this something that would maybe be moddable? In terms of making adventurers playable?

The engine doesn't really support that. So I don't think we can make landless characters playable. I mean, we had to to actually create special settlements for the republican families, with the palace thing. Which was their core settlement, so they would always be landed.

"...Money is still power, even in the Viking Era."
The fact sheet mentions that it will actually generate unrest if you don't go to war as a pagan.

Yes. Well, there's two parts to it. If you decide I'm going to call an invasion, and then you get your vikings turning up...if you then refuse to declare war, you've got, like, a two year window to do it, then you will get big penalties.

And Prestige is a key thing. So, because these invasions are your biggest way of getting troops over land, I can be the poorest count in Norway. But if I have a high enough Prestige, I can declare invasions for one of my pagan neighbors, in fact, summon Vikings, and basically kick them in. So you have to make sure you have a lot of Prestige so you can counter-invade and things like this.

The other part is, obviously, that if you go looting, you're going to get money. And money still translates into building upgrades and all these kinds of things. It builds up your core demesne, allows you to buy titles...so, money is still power, even in the Viking Era.



And do you actually destroy holdings when you go raiding? Or destroy building improvements?

Well, that's definitely going to be a kind of tweaking/balancing thing. We definitely think it should destroy improvements. You know, but it's going to be a question of balance, how much damage they should do. Should they be able to burn down whole holdings? Or should they set back your improvements in holdings? That's going to be something we'll play around with.

So it's not just a red icon that says "Pillaged" that goes on the province and just gives you a temporary penalty.

No. We're aiming to make sure it actually damages stuff.

"So I rage-quit. I said, 'This needs balancing! It's broken! You need to fix this!'"
You mentioned at one point that you're still messing with the numbers and balancing for pagan invasions.

Yeah, I played the King of Scotland, and the Great Heathen Army was obviously beating up the English. Which was pleasing for me. But then there's one scripted invasion we have, which is the Great Summer Army, which came a year after the Great Heathen Army. And he should pick East Anglia, but he actually has a random chance of picking another county.

So he picked bloody Scotland! And 6000 Vikings arrived on an invasion CB. So if they won, I'm out. So I rage-quit. I said, "This needs balancing! It's broken! You need to fix this!"

We're trying to get that kind of thing where it shouldn't just be a simple steamroll. But also, it should be a threat. So we're trying to find that right balance number.

On the next page: How the expansion will handle the Great Christian Schism, cultural shifts, and nomads.





PC Gamer: One question that has actually come up a lot when I've put out the call on Twitter is: how are you guys going to handle the Catholic schism that happened between 867 and 1066?

Chris King: Yes, that's something we're discussing a lot. Because we're going to basically run with the idea that the schism has as good as happened . If you go back maybe another 200 years prior to that, the Byzantine Emperor was the protector of the Pope in Rome. So even though there were theological differences between the Pope in Rome and the Eastern bishops, this political situation— he was still approved by the Byzantine Emperor. And there were four Eastern Patriarchs versus one Western Patriarch.

By 800, there's two things. One: They've brought in Charlemagne. The Pope has crowned his own Emperor in the West to protect him. And three of the Eastern bishops have fallen to the advance of Islam. So you're already at this point where the Western church is diverging. Even though they haven't done that final, cataclysmic excommunication of the Byzantine Emperor ... the Western and Eastern churches have already strongly diverged.

So we're not going to have as the same religion. But we might have some kind of flavor things going in there.

" got far more development time. At least an extra month, which I think puts it about 25 percent bigger than any of the others."
Will there be an event, possibly, for the big cross-excommuncation? A big "Screw you Byzantines" event?

Possibly. We're definitely going to aim, if we have the time, to put in a bit of flavor around that great moment. Because it is one of those seminal moments in history. It turned what was essentially theological differences of interpretation into a final break that there was no way back from.

Will there be many new cultural change events between 867 and 1066?

Well, there's definitely going to have to be a Norse kind of "fracturing pot." You know, you split into Swedes, Danes, and Norwegians. And that's the kind of thing where we're going to look at it and see, what would be cool with the game, and what do we have time to script?

What about things like the Vikings under Rollo landing in France and becoming Normans?

Yeah, we're going to actually have to make sure we do that. I don't know if Henrik has got that planned. I'll certainly remind him that we're going to have to make sure that's in.

Is this your biggest expansion yet? The price point is more than any of the previous DLCs.

Yes. It's got far more development time. At least an extra month, which I think puts it about 25 percent bigger than any of the others.



As far as the old school pagan mechanics, are those getting replaced now that you're fleshing them out? Thinking specifically of Warrior Cults and all these little things that were meant to help them survive a bit longer.

Well, at the moment they're still there. And we're just going to see how we should adapt them as the game unfolds. We're already looking at, "What do we do to stop the Holy Roman Empire just trashing the Norse in 867?" So a lot of it is going to be how the game actually plays itself, how we're going to handle these things.

How many nations are pagan in 867? I think I heard Hungary might be?

Well, the Hungarians are pagan, but they're not actually in Hungary. They're out in the steppes at the moment. Poland is still pagan. All the way East is. You know, the Slavic tribes are there. You've got Rurik, the Norse Viking in Novgorod, who's also pagan. All of Scandinavia is pagan as well.

Is Poland lumped in with the Baltic/Romuva group?

No, we've added a new flavor of pagans: Slavonic pagans. Which covers, like, Poles and Russians. They are fractured into several sub-tribes. There is no Poland at the moment.



How do you model that in the game? Obviously, and I've seen this on the forums when we were just speculating about the expansion— a lot of these tribes didn't have anything close to CK2's feudal system.

What we have is just, essentially, lower-tier titles. So that one of these tribes can come together and unite as Poland.

What we're currently playing around with is a kind of pagan fracturing sort of idea. Because you don't have these tight bonds to the feudal structure, at what point do you just allow people to leave your little constructed realm? I've built myself up as, you know, a king in Sweden. But then, it's not feudal. You don't have those tight contracts. We're looking at evolving that kind of system.

"We call it 'The Hungarian Question.'"
Are they represented as counts? Or dukes?

There are some dukes, some counties. One of our is apparently well up on Slavic tribes, so he's given us a set-up with different power blocs in different places.

Are there any changes being made to model the nomadic people who were around at that time? There was a lot of migration going on, a lot of tribes that just up and left where they were between 867 and 1066. It wasn't just an issue of conquering more stuff, they left the old lands behind.

That's something, obviously. We call it "The Hungarian Question." Which is, "How do we get the Hungarians from their home right now, in Western Ukraine, into Hungary?" So it's something that we know about, and we're probably going to do a bit of iteration, and trial and error, on that one. We definitely want nomads to move.

Now, let's say you're a pagan jarl, and you're being invaded by the Holy Roman Emperor. Could you put out a call for, like, a defensive invasion?

That's one of the things we're looking at to help pagans defend is, perhaps, these bands that spawn for invasions will spawn to protect and defend them as well. It's one of these things that would make sure we don't have a Holy Roman steamroll through Scandinavia in 867. And so we're open to these kind of ideas, and we're going to pick the ones that give us the right effect.



Were there any more religions added beyond the Slavonic pagans?

No. I mean, you've got the Khazars out on the steppes, which I've read were actually Jews, essentially. But we decided not to add another religion again, because then we get sucked into giving them cool mechanics. And we felt, we'll just make them pagan—Tengri pagan. And then just develop the mechanics for that. We felt that if we started adding, you know, many more religions, we would start spreading ourselves too thin on this expansion.

"I mean, they were dualistic fire-worshipers. So it’s not really like Christianity."
The Zoroastrians are also getting some love, though?

They'll be playable.

But they're not getting any specific, new mechanics.

Well, we'll see about that. There's not many Zoroastrian rulers kicking about. So it's down on our list. But we know our fans like the Zoroastrians. So we'll see what we can do for them.

Will they be modeled more closely to the pagans, in terms of mechanics and interface and things like that?

Yes. I mean, they were dualistic fire-worshipers. So it's not really like Christianity.

Can they call invasions?

We'll see. It's something where we'll just see what's fun and interesting. The Norse definitely get the invasions. We'll see who else does.

So invasions aren't necessarily everyone within the Pagan religious group.

Not necessarily. We'll just be playing around a lot with them. If it ends up with, like, the Finns invading Spain all the time, we'll have to say, "Look, Finns, you're not getting the invasion CB." So we'll be looking at what feels historical and what's fun with all of the pagan religions.

And so we set our sails for the fertile lands of Q2 2013, when our longships will arrive and our heathen armies can reign over Europe at last. Thanks again to Chris for sharing his wisdom with us. You can get caught up about the expansion and check out the trailer if you're gnawing at your shield for more.

In an interview with GameSpy, Paradox's CEO Frederik Wester has revealed that the publisher cancelled four games in the past year, in an attempt to ensure that consumers weren't paying for buggy or unfinished titles.

Wester's comments were in response to questioning about the much maligned alternate history Civil War RTS Gettysburg: Armoured Warfare. Wester said, "That was terrible. We did not do our homework. It was a one-man team with some backup... we learned a lot from that release. We've had many bad releases before that, as well, and we learned something every time."

"In 2012, we also closed four game projects. This happened after Gettysburg. We looked at them and said, 'These games are not up to the standards we're currently looking for at Paradox, so we're going to close these projects.' We're not going to have any more games that are unplayable at release."

Gettysburg wasn't the only Paradox title in recent history to launch in an unfinished state. Both Magicka and Sword of the Stars 2 were released with significant problems. Wester admits that previously, Paradox couldn't risk the financial hit of cancelling projects. "We needed to release the best product we could release at the time in order to get at least some of the cash we invested back."

The success of Magicka and Crusader Kings 2 has put Paradox in a position were they can afford to be more diligent. "An internal quality assurance team has been built over the past year," Wester says. "Previously, we didn't have an internal QA team. Now we have a team of eight dedicated people in-house. We have a dedicated QA team for the Paradox development studio, specifically for the Crusader and Europa games, and we also now work with a number of external QA studios to stress test our multiplayer games, compatibility testing so it runs on different hardware, etc."

Wester closes by saying, "That's what you'll see from Paradox – fewer and better titles. The quality improvement is the most important thing we're working on right now."

Thanks, VG247.

The large-scale grand strategy of Crusader Kings 2 can feel Game of Thrones-ian in its web of intrigue and plotting. The Republic expansion takes place on a smaller scale. At times, its petty inter-family squabbling feels more like medieval Eastenders. Brilliant.

The Republic is largely about trade. Your early to-do list as Doge ruler is simple: build ports, on every coastal county that you can afford. As your influence expands, you’ll clash with the other republics. They want your ports. You want theirs. You are never going to be BFFs.

Back at home, there are the great families of your own republic to contend with. Unlike troublesome feudal vassals, these houses can’t be stripped of their titles. They’re a constant throughout the game – your allies, subjects and bitter enemies, all rolled into one. The mercantile focus means you can quickly build an impressive war chest, and much of it will be invested in screwing over both these groups. You’ll use mercenaries to fund wars abroad, bribe courtiers to join plots against rival houses, and fund your election campaign, ensuring that it’s your heir that benefits from the expansion’s new succession system.



If you really want to screw over another republic, you can attempt to persuade a king to enforce a trade embargo. This razes any harbours they’ve built in a liege’s territory, and blocks them from rebuilding for ten years, leaving you free to expand. The same can work in reverse – you can’t ignore the whims of the landowners, because getting on their bad side can prove devastating.

Inevitably, things become micromanagement heavy. The more harbours you hold, the more upgrades you’ll need to be building. It wouldn’t matter as much if the choices were as balanced and complex as that of a castle or city. Instead, you have three options – tax, troops or trade price – ad infinitum.

Then there’s your family. Having to assign tutors to their constant procession of mewling spawn was tedious enough in the base game. With no fiefs to grant particularly reproductive siblings, here you’re in charge of every excruciating scholastic decision. It’s a symptom of a larger problem. The Republic provides the most divergent CK2 campaign yet but, in doing so, it feels only loosely integrated with the game’s complex systems.



The tactical sandbox is tighter and less sprawling, but the detail hasn’t been increased to balance out the reduction of scope. The family feuding, harbour seizing and electoral wrangling are placed front and centre. But, while fun, these additions don’t provide the breadth of options for an expansive and varied set of strategies.

If Paradox continue their admirable post-release content patches, The Republic could prove a lasting alternative. For now it’s a cheap and enjoyable sideshow to CK2’s endless replayability.

◆ Expect to pay: $12.30 / £8
◆ Release: Out now
◆ Developer: Paradox Interactive
◆ Publisher: In-house
◆ Multiplayer: Up to 32
◆ Link: www.crusaderkings.com

Paradox have filled in the details of the upcoming Crusader Kings II pagan expansion, after its initial announcement at their convention last week. If you're very quiet, you might just hear the sound of PCG US's T.J. celebrating from the other side of the Atlantic.



As with CK2's other expansions, the Old Gods promises a wide range of game changing features. The most dramatic among them: you can now play as a Pagan or Zoroastrian rulers. That means looting, pillaging, and recruiting adventurers in preparation for an invasion, all from the new, earlier, date of 867 AD. It will also make the pagan forces a more robust opponent for the game's traditional Catholic rulers.

Here's the full feature list from the press release:


Religious Turmoil: Restore the Old Gods to prominence through sacrifice and divination, or force the pagans to convert through new missionary missions
Earlier start: 200 years of more gameplay with the special 867 AD bookmark
Rebels With a Cause: Rebels are no longer faceless rabble, but led by defined characters with specific agendas
Adventurers: Watch as landless younger sons and charismatic warriors raise armies
Pillage and Prosper: Loot provinces and burn cities to the ground – lest your warlike people grow angry during extended peacetime!
Heathens: Convert them or play as them and survive, reforming your faith to stand the test of time
Prepared Invasions: Declare your intent to invade a rich target, and watch adventurers and opportunists flock to your banner.
Unholy UI: A new pagan interface is available alongside all-new events, decisions, and units


Unfortunately, because this has nothing to do with Paradox's other convention announcements, I can't really justify more Brian Blessed photoshops.

Oh go on then. Just this once.



You know I spoil you.

Paradox's CEO, Fredrik Wester, has just finished delivering the opening press conference of the Paradox Convention 2013. Announcements included new expansions, a new game, and something involving the thunderous thespian Brian Blessed. Read on for a complete run down of the convention's revelations.

War of the Roses gets Brian Blessed DLC

Gordon's alive! This announcement is bizarre, yet somehow appropriate. A bit like Blessed himself.

In February, War of the Roses will be getting a DLC pack that will feature the vocal talents of the sonorous Brian Blessed. No details yet on Blessed's role, but you can bet it will involve many decibels. The game will also be holding a free trial.

The Showdown Effect blasts into beta

Pre-orders for the cliché-filled 2.5D multiplayer action game will begin today. Everyone who pre-orders will get instant access to the beta.

The pre-order page isn't live yet, but it should be available at some point in the next few hours. Here's the website, and here's a trailer:



Pagans invade Crusader Kings II

Some long awaited news for the feudal feuding strategy, as playable pagans will finally be made available. The Old Gods expansion will focus on Vikings and Pagans, and add landless adventurer characters.

The chance to bother the Scandinavians as a Norse warrior has been at the top of the community's wishlist since the game's release. The Old Gods will also set Crusader Kings 2's starting date back to 867 AD.

Victoria II: The African campaign

Also to be expanded is colonial grand strategy title Victoria II. The Heart of Darkness add-on will focus on Africa, as you "compete with other colonial powers and experience international crises which require Great Power mediation if the world is to avoid war." It will also feature new naval combat.

Ship gets real



The conference also announced a brand new game, Leviathan Warships, complete with the excellent tagline: "Ship just got real."

It's a strategic action game, in which players build and customise their own fleet of warships to pit against three other players. The game will support multiplatform cross-play, with PC, Mac, iOS and Android versions planned.

To the west: the vast, all-powerful expanse of the Holy GabeN Empire. To the East: the notably less powerful, but still somewhat impressive Kingdom of GamersGate. Paradox Interactive have been successfully trading with both for years, but, in a shock bid for independence, they've now launched their own store.

Currently in beta, the Paradox Webshop is selling the publisher/developer's catalogue directly to fans. Well, not quite directly. Rather than providing downloads, users are given a Steam key on purchase. Still, to celebrate the launch, Paradox are offering 55% off the majority of its games.

That means cheap deals on the feudal feuding of Crusader Kings 2, the samurai strategy of Sengoku, the madcap mayhem of Magicka and... lots of other games. Sorry, I couldn't sustain that level of alliteration.

The store's still missing some of Paradox's back catalogue. At a glance, it seems that CK2's trade-based expansion The Republic has yet to dock. But the homepage assures that, "Eventually all our titles will be offered along with lots of other fun goods and surprises."

Thanks, RPS.

The Showdown Effect, the upcoming run-and-gun side-scroller from Magicka creators Arrowhead, isn't just about ludicrously exaggerated shooting sprees. It's also about ludicrously exaggerated shooting sprees punctuated by the best sort of cheesy action-movie one-liners this side of a Schwarzenegger quip.

Each character shown in Arrowhead's latest trailer combines all the properties of manly action heroes of '80s and '90s—including classics such as a cop on his last beat before retirement and a martial arts master who owns an antique store—and sets them against each other in multiplayer matches of silly, speedy shootouts. My personal choice? Teacher-come-time-traveler Dutch McClone, who Arrowhead describes as "Bruce Willis merged with that other guy." Sold.

Arrowhead's fourth-wall-busting, spell-slinging adventure Magicka received a new entry in its arcane codex of patch notes today. But in true Magicka fashion, the fixed bugs and slight tweaks were cheekily presented alongside an abundance of flavor text carrying Arrowhead's snappy wit.

The full patch notes are below.

- Added some missing characters to certain fonts. Continuing our commitment to offering characters to all fonts everywhere.
- Fixed a pathfinding crash. Took us a bit, but we found it.
- Fixed disappearing boss Vlad. Turns out he was just at the bar up the street.
- Fixed a crash when killing frozen Khan (and possibly other bosses). KHAAAAAAN!
- Fixed camera issue when being revived by the fairy. Fairies weren’t previously aware of auto-focus.
- Fixed NPC spellcaster AI sometimes freezing up. After taking some public speaking classes, though, the NPC finally warmed up.
- Mobs are now able to spawn their own kind upon death. That sounds kinda gross, actually.
- Added some new functionality to scene scripts. Scene scripts run. Run, scripts, run!
- Reduced the physical damage resistance of Enraged Goblin Warlocks. Let’s face it, Warlocks sound all-powerful but they’re really just a bunch of pansies.
- Fixed a localization crash. Que haya sido reparado.
- Fixed a crash with the Performance Enchantment magick. Talk to your doctor first.
- Fixed a crash that occurred when firing a water projectile during a level transition. That’ll show those pesky levels who’s boss around here.
- Fixed an issue with collision checks that resulted in multiple fall damage. Large Hadron Collider consulted, collisions now in check.
- Fixed certain lights being removed when restarting a scene. Disco disco, good good.
- Fixed scores being inconsistent between client and host in challenges. Issues resolved with just a couple trust falls.
- Fixed script delays being reset when restarting a challenge level. No more delays, the movie will finally be coming out soon.
- Fixed element icons getting stuck highlighted when disabled (as in Elemental Roulette). Now if we could only get our car’s dome light to turn off.
- Fixed a crash where players were gripped during level transition. Now they’ll just be gripped in anticipation, amirite?!
- General stability improvements.

Magicka's hypreractive wizards caused too much collateral damage to accurately fit the "good guys" label, but most of the time their menacing array of lasers and magic mines were pointing at evildoers. In Magicka's new expansion, The Other Side of the Coin, you'll have license to cause as much havoc as you want. You play either as the vampire Alucart, or one of his necromancer entourage on a mission to blow up the elves in their homeland.

The Other Side of the Coin will land in just a couple of weeks on June 14 and will cost $4.99. It'll add a story challenge, four challenge maps and let you play as a necromancer in Magicka's hilarious player vs. player mode. Grab the full feature list below.

Features:

Play as Alucart the Vampire and his henchmen, the Necromancers
One exciting new story challenge set among beautiful new elven architecture
4 new challenge maps playing as necromancers: World's End, Volcano Hideout, OSOTC Arena and the Mirror Crystal Cavern Hideout.
Necromancer introduced to PvP
New achivements
Innovative and dynamic spellcasting system with thousands of possible combinations
Up to four player co-op in all game modes as well as single player option
Experience the parody and satire of a cliché fantasy world

 

Paradox seems to be cornering the cutesy fantasy market; first Magicka, then A Game of Dwarves, now Dungeonland. Dungeonland's premise is simple; an evil lord, tired of heroes rampaging through his dungeon, takes a loan from the Evil Overlord Foundation and creates a kingdom especially for heroes to destroy, chockful of powerful monsters and magic tat.



Developed by Brazil-based Critical Studio, Dungeon Land is half Left4Dead, half Diablo, half Overlord and totally not about maths. A team of three intrepid adventurers (that's you!) take the archetypes of rogue, wizard and warrior and fight their way through an long open level, battling varieties of minions. Each character has access to a limited variety of weapons, which change their abilities and function. For example, the warrior's sword and shield allows him to block attacks and knock back enemies, but can be swapped for a two-handed hammer.

The level we attempted was about an hour long and was a soft parody of Dungeons & Dragons and Disneyland, complete with endless gift shops and costumed characters to battle. Combat is simple, and works best with gamepads; we ran around frantically bashing enemies, looting crap, and fending off the massed hordes.



Each player had three potions, which enabled a super-attack, and a limited number of friend-resurrections before permadeath kicked in. The feel was very close to Torchlight, with enemies dying very quickly, and abilities more being used for crowd control and survival in a giant melee.

Intriguingly, the Dungeon Lord himself can be either a fourth player or controlled by the AI. With the AI, he behaves like Left4Dead's director, spawning enemies, treasure and minibosses at critical moments. It's not clear how the fourth player will handle it, but we do know they'll have direct control of any bosses.



Like the Elder Dragon (an old dragon wearing a hat and glasses) and Mind Flayer (a giant illithid, D&D fans) we encountered, bosses are huge and normally surrounded by minions. Like all bosses after World of Warcraft, they're big, cartoony and signal their attacks waaay in advance.

There are just three levels planned at the moment, giving the game about three hours linear playtime; it remains to be seen if the Dungeon Master AI will give it greater replay value. Dungeonland is due for release in 2012. You can watch the most recent Dungonland trailer here.