Pathfinder: Kingmaker Paizo Preview

If things go according to plan, Pathfinder: Kingmaker, the first proper Pathfinder-based cRPG, should be releasing on September 25, 2018. With that in mind, this official blog post from Paizo, the publishers of the original tabletop game, offers a promotional preview that focuses on the differences between the tabletop Kingmaker adventure path and its cRPG counterpart. Check it out:

In just two weeks, the first single-player isometric CRPG using the rules and world of Pathfinder will be released—Owlcat Games’ Pathfinder: Kingmaker. It’s been a long time coming, and we couldn’t be more excited for the world at large to get to experience it!

One of the greatest challenges of adapting an adventure path like Kingmaker—which came out way back in the spring of 2009—into a new medium is balancing faithfulness to the source material with the creation of enough new content to entertain players and GMs who played or ran the campaign in the last decade. Kingmaker, by far the Pathfinder Adventure Path with the most open, sandboxy feel, left the writers at Owlcat (led by industry veteran Chris Avellone, of Planescape: Torment and Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords fame) with plenty of room to add their own content while still including all the now-iconic encounters and story elements that made the pen-and-paper campaign such a classic.

An all-new introduction to the campaign, set in the manor house of Swordlord Jamandi Aldori, serves not only as a tutorial for new players, but also gives context to the player’s mission (something the original campaign left to the GM) and introduces some of the myriad characters who will play large roles in the ongoing campaign, gaining both her most loyal companion and a hated rival.

Throughout the game, in addition to countless new side-missions and subplots introduced as connective tissue between the story elements presented in the pen-and-paper version of the campaign, the player can engage in deeply immersive companion-based plots involving each of over ten companions. Some of these, such as Amiri’s companion quests, incorporate elements of the existing campaign, like the nomadic Kellid barbarians who show up in chapter four, while others are entirely new content involving such epic villains as Numeria’s Technic League! Other side quests expand on simple plot hooks provided on the inside covers of the original printed books meant for GM inspiration. Still others are wholly new plotlines created to flesh out large map areas or tie together disparate elements of the campaign in new and inventive ways.

As if that weren’t enough, Pathfinder: Kingmaker includes a seventh chapter above and beyond the six printed in the pages of Pathfinder Adventure Path back in 2009. This expedition into the mysteries of the First World and some of the machinations of the Eldest is perhaps the game’s most inspired and imaginative content!