Kingmakers is a strategy game about taking on medieval armies with a gun, but its devs thought the giant mech was too much

Even if you don't immediately recognize the name Kingmakers, there's a good chance you've seen its absurdly flashy gameplay go viral on social media. It's the game where you can mow down thousands of medieval knights using an assault rifle and storm a castle in a fancy sports car, but despite all of its off-the-wall ideas, its director says giant mechs were just a step too far.

Speaking to Edge Magazine in its latest issue, out now, game director Paul Fisch reveals the team "did have a giant cyborg" at one point in development, "like a titan unit" that would "march around and move soldiers out of the way." But after playing around with the idea, "we discovered that was too much. It was immersion breaking. Ultimately, it broke the fantasy."

At its heart, Kingmakers is actually a strategy game. Sure, you can zoom in and give your medieval enemies a taste of the future first-hand, but you can just as easily zoom out and command the battlefield top-down. "It's like a hybrid strategy game," Fisch explains. "If you give a guy an assault rifle, when he starts fighting thousands of people, he's surrounded and shut down. You actually need to build a town and cultivate an army and have generals."

Interestingly, over time, your foes will begin to recognize and react to your unfamiliar tech: "The people in the past start counter-balancing. You're this force on the battlefield that they recognise, and they start fielding things to try to stop you."

Kingmakers is scheduled to enter early access on Steam sometime this year.

For now, check out some other upcoming indie games of 2025 and beyond that are worth keeping an eye on.