At the 3rd day of GenCon 50, there was a panel of the upcoming Pathfinder Kingmaker game. Led by Alexander Mishulin, he went over the basics of the new game, it’s goals, and how much it would remain the same, and different from the original Pathfinder Kingmaker adventure path. Their stated goal is to expand Kingmaker into a full fledged, standalone game. It will be an isometric RPG similar to Baldur’s Gate using the Unity engine.
The combat system will be heavily influenced off of the Pathfinder game and will have every race and base class in the core book, plus the Inquisitor, Alchemist, and Magus. He mentioned other races may be included and there will be a contest to determine what extra race or races will be. So I’d suggest subscribing to their website newsletter to keep up with such things. The game will be very sandboxy, with players able to go anywhere and do anything, though some areas will be more dangerous than others. There will be 40 regions the player can take control over and build up. It sounds like the zones will be based around increasing economy, culture, etc. I was unclear exactly what this would look like because he is so thoroughly destroying the old kingdom building rules from Pathfinder. Note: this is a good thing because those rules could be very easily broken. So a total rebuild of that system is a good thing and is something to be excited about.
The level system will be just like or almost the same way as the Pathfinder system, though one wrinkle in that is the combat will be real time, not turn based. So there could be some translation issues, but I don’t think there will be. The abilities should translate well, especially since most are stat bonuses. Personally, I am very excited they will allow multi-classing in the game since some of those are my favorite builds. There will also be 3 archetypes per class so the level of ability customization for your character will be very solid.
However, what impressed me even more were the characters. There will be 12 companions that you can recruit and have travel with you, one of which will be a Goblin. They will each have their own storyline and some of them will be romanceable (Though it’s unclear if you can marry them and have them rule your nation at your side). There will be at least 3 iconic characters in the game who will have quests, including the Iconic Pathfinder Barbarian, Wizard, and Ranger.
Alignment will play a big factor in the game and will cause some companions to betray you or leave your party. So it will be a good idea to plan around that. The kingdom will also have an alignment that will be the same or similar to your own. As such that means if you are lawful good you will have a lot of lawful good paladins wandering your lands, lawful evil could have ice witches from the North and so on. So it will create interesting flavor that will hopefully affect what storylines you can open up. There will be 20 different Gods to worship in the game and make them the patron deity of your nation. It is unclear if all of these can be a patron due to nature of the region but your character can worship any. You will be unable to become a God or form you own religion.
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Black markets and crime empires will play a part so if you are a rogue or underhanded character you will have some of that in your game. Then you will have to confront different problems in your nations, but will gain access to different types of goods and solutions. The balancing of it all sounds like a lot of fun and truly entertaining.
One disappointing thing for me is no mass combat. In the Kingmaker adventure path, there was a real war and we fought with armies, but in this game that will not be the case. The only combat will be between your party and relatively small groups of powerful enemies.
There will be no crafting by the character but you can recruit different types of artisans who can build magical gear for you. So in this way there is a crafting system, but maybe not in the way most games would work. There will also be cursed items in the game that you can’t easily get rid of so be warned, not every item will be your friend.
The game is set for release in August of 2018 with testing beginning at the start of the same year. There are no plans for DLC, expansions or sequels at this time but they are open to doing them.