Back in 2019 on Netflix a South Korean thriller series was released under the guidance of Kim Seong-Hun, called Kingdom.
The series took place after the Japanese invasions of Korea in the 16th century and tells the tale of the political betrayal, the duty of ruling, and the mysterious illness of the reigning Korean monarch.
It’s all well and good that we can watch a South Korean thriller TV series, but what does this have to do with gaming?
Well, Netflix has met up with Action Square, a South Korean game development studio responsible for similar video game-movie duality projects, such as the Blade series. Together, they’re planning on releasing a new action RPG based on the incredibly successful Netflix title.
It will be released as Kingdom: The Blood, and will be a bit less focused on the internal politics of 16th century Korea, and a bit more focused on hacking and slashing your living and undead enemies alike. In Netflix’s announcement statement of the upcoming release, the publisher emphasised its intentions of maintaining a synergy of “high-quality 3D graphics” with the zombies and vicious action from the original TV series. Netflix also promised that “Korean culture is treated with utmost care in both gameplay and aesthetic,” and the development team even went as far as to record a professional Korean sword dancer for the purpose of motion capture to assist in implementing authentic Korean-style armed combat!
The game will be released on PC, iOS, and Android. There is no release date thus far, and will include a story mode following the TV series, with components of PvP combat and ‘multi-boss battles’, split into a string of 5-minute battles.
