I thought I couldn’t be any more excited for my most anticipated strategy game, and then the tank showed up

(Image credit: TinyBuild)

Earlier this year, I begged people to watch the first 24 seconds of the trailer for my most-anticipated strategy game of 2024. Now, that game is back with a new trailer even more bombastic than the last.

Kingmakers introduced itself to the world in February with a trailer that initially obscured its true nature. After an opening 23 seconds that look like a quintessential medieval strategy game – think something like Mount & Blade with a touch of Age of Empires – it gave way to some DeLorean-style time-travel and a lone ranger carving through a medieval army with a rifle. It still has to be seen to be believed.

Now, Kingmakers is back with a new trailer that puts its initial effort to shame. Kicking off with a series of drive-by motorbike shootings that would put even the cast of GTA to shame, it only gets more bombastic from there, when our well-armed hero takes his grenade launcher to a nearby building.

The destruction physics on display are not bad, especially for a game that’s clearly having to keep a large number of NPCs moving around it’s map at any given time, but once again, Kingmakers continues to dial up the stakes. Clearly having lacked firepower up until this point, your return to the field in a fully kitted-out modern tank, against which your opponents’ wooden architecture doesn’t hold up for very long.

If the Three Little Pigs taught me anything, it’s that if the house made of sticks didn’t offer enough protection, the house made of bricks should. Unfortunately for the inhabitants of Kingmakers, the house made of bricks wasn’t going up against the explosive power of a modern-day tank, which is bad news for the castle at the edge of this battlefield. With each long-distance shot, another tower crumbles to the ground, implying that this siege might be somewhat short-lived.

Kingmakers is set to release into Steam Early Access later this year, but there’s no firm release date yet. As I said back in February, I will be there from day one.

We’d better be making some room on our list of the best strategy games.

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I’m GamesRadar’s news editor, working with the team to deliver breaking news from across the industry. I started my journalistic career while getting my degree in English Literature at the University of Warwick, where I also worked as Games Editor on the student newspaper, The Boar. Since then, I’ve run the news sections at PCGamesN and Kotaku UK, and also regularly contributed to PC Gamer. As you might be able to tell, PC is my platform of choice, so you can regularly find me playing League of Legends or Steam’s latest indie hit.