Reality Pump Studios busily finishing work on KnightShift, the upcoming RPG/RTS hybrid title for the PC for publisher Zuxxex Entertainment. Zuxxex recently sent us a beta build of the game containing the first 4 missions of the Campaign one (the retail version will have 3 Campaigns with 24 Missions), part of RPG mode and two maps for multiplayer (full version contains 16 maps).

For those who never heard about this upcoming game, KnightShift offers the best of conventional RPG and RTS games in a mystic world, full of fantasy and imagination. You take control over heroes, real (funny) or magic characters and leads them to victory and honor. The unique combination of RTS and RPG elements in the single player campaigns, the hardcore gamer dedicated RPG mode for Single and Multiplayer matches and the unique humor of KnightShift brings real innovation into to days gaming world.

The story centers on Prince John and his imprisonment by the evil and cruel wizard Valtamand. Dark and treacherous powers joined together to spread evil over the land and to banish the prince from the principality and the thoughts of the people. Then because of an unsuccessful spell from the despicable lords the prince was banished to another dimension, but not from the memories and hearts of the people.Some years later, through the opening of a portal between dimensions by the good-hearted magician Gallus, the prince was able to return to his lands. The task then was to drive out the evil lords from power and to allow peace and order to return. A bitter fight against the powers of evil is now imminent... That's where the strategic adventure starts.

KnightShift features mixed campaign mode (RPG+RTS gameplay with the building of structures, the creation of units and the collection of resources), RPG mode (a pure Hack & Slay RPG, with the selection of one of eight different characters, each with their own attributes, and the quests that different NPCs give you), Skirmish mode (pure RTS gameplay) and also multiplayer up to 8 players.

There are three campaigns played in different geographical areas - each of them with different goals and several missions. I had chance to play the first 4 missions of the Campaign one. At start you only control the prince and during the first missions you get contact to your party. Then you have to construct a village, take care of the economy (collecting cow's milk as a resource :P), train your fighters and win back the throne at the end. There are no units in the game, there are characters. Playable types of characters are cows, hunters, warriors, woodcutters, spearmen and cowherds. During the whole campaign there are several quests and adventures to solve. The missions are not linear and there are several methods of solving them.

Graphically, the game is very nice. KnightShift utilizes the newly developed Earth-III engine that provides graphics and effects like advanced bump mapping and light reflections on terrain, physically calculated water properties effects (waves, reflections, transparency, depth, color) with shimmering sun / moonlight reflections, sky view with clouds and dynamic changes of day and night cycles and lens flare, etc. Just be prepared to have at least a GeForce Ti 4200/Radeon 9500 video card so that you can see the game in all its glory. The sound effects are good and the soundtrack is rich and catchy, also the interface is clear and simple.

The build I got to play was a beta version so a few problems did present themselves such as unbalanced RPG mode, bugs in pathfinding, some missing voice-overs etc., but Reality Pump has plenty of time to go bug hunting, polishing and fixing before its scheduled release date. However, Reality Pump's new game is already looking and playing great.

KnightShift feels really great and it's really damn challenging and addictive game :) I'm looking forward for this title. The game should be available later this year.