PAX West 2024: Kingsisle Entertainment
When I was a kid, I distinctly remember seeing advertisements for Wizard101 on television. Its fun, stylish, and colorful aesthetic always stuck with me, despite not being able to play it due to extremely slow rural-America-in-the-mid-2000s internet speeds. Much to my delight, I discovered that not only is Kingsisle Entertainment – the developer and publisher – still going strong, but they were going to be at PAX West 2024.
After a conversation with my inner child (he told me I had to go talk to them), I set up a meeting to discuss the current state of Wizard101, as well as the two new projects coming out under the Kingsisle’s banner. I met with the developers on the show floor of the Seattle Arches Convention Center and was led to a very nice room behind the computers and the raucous crowds. This was a little bit of a different experience, as I didn’t actually play any of the games Kingsisle Entertainment were displaying. Instead, I sat down with four members of their team and had a fantastic conversation surrounding their latest projects, as well as how they've kept Wizard101 going after so many years.
The first subject we really dove into was their upcoming release of FATE: Reawakened; a 4-in-1 remake of the cult classic RPG series, FATE. It's an isometric action RPG first released in 2005 for the PC by WildTangent. For the series’s 20th anniversary, Kingsisle Entertainment decided to rebuild the RPG series from the ground up. I have clear memories of family members playing these games, so I was really excited to discuss why they decided to remake the FATE series and what they changed in the experience.
It seems Kingsisle has done everything it can to keep the FATE series preserved as perfectly as possible, assuring me they only made quality-of-life improvements with the goal that the remake is as faithful as possible to the originals. The majority of people who worked on the original FATE series are retired now, and this presented quite a challenge when it came to actually building the systems and the world. That’s a challenge Kingsisle was willing to take to give back to the community that had shown so much love for the FATE series.
This doesn’t mean the game went completely unchanged, however. They completely re-recorded the voice-over from the ground up to better fit the quality of voice work we have today (that’s not saying the previous work was bad, but the sound quality itself apparently left a lot to be desired.) On top of this, they updated various aspects of the UI, making some more tedious parts of the original a little bit more usable. The biggest change seems to be that they made the entire experience seamless across all four games. Like the Mass Effect franchise, the FATE series took your previous choices and imported them over to the next game, guaranteeing that the changes you made to the world stayed consistent. Kingsisle Entertainment decided the best way to translate this to the modern day is to make the entire experience cohesive, no longer broken up into four separate parts.
Stylistically, FATE: Reawakened does an excellent job of converting the feel of the world of the original to the modern day. Characters still have that cute, semi-polygonal feel they had in 2005, but now the models are way more detailed, and the animations are smoother than they’ve ever been. Kingsisle Entertainment really thrives on loud, bright, fun, highly saturated fantasy worlds, and seeing how well they left their mark on the FATE series makes me feel like they were the perfect people to reinvent this beloved classic. It’s difficult to create a game that needs to look and feel both modern and retro without detracting from either, and Kingsisle Entertainment struck gold with FATE: Reawakened. I’m not the only one to feel this way either as the reception for the game was excellent during PAX West.
So does this mean that Kingsisle has been too distracted with FATE: Reawakened to keep up with Wizard101? Of course not! I thought I was talking to devs and publishers, but it would appear that I was talking to workhorses, as evidenced by the sheer amount of content coming out for the game. According to the devs, Wizard101 is doing extremely well, with a healthy, continuing player base, featuring a large number of people who started playing Wizard101 in 2008 and still play the game today, except now some of them play with their own kids. Part of the reasoning for this success is the sheer amount of updates and content they have pushed out for Wizard101, with an average of 3 updates a year keeping the game fresh.
It seems Kingsisle has done everything it can to keep the FATE series preserved as perfectly as possible, assuring me they only made quality-of-life improvements with the goal that the remake is as faithful as possible to the originals.
In the last four years alone, they’ve expanded into events, invented raids, and created team-based PVP and PVE, allowing them to maintain longevity and diversity in their gameplay. The devs assured me that there would be absolutely no pay-to-win mechanics, and that, as always, all of these updates would be free-to-play. On top of this, they’re adding a rogue-like decathlon, handing out players randomized challenges and seeing how long they can last for various rewards. As with all previous updates, there are no pay gimmicks here, allowing characters to earn their rewards fair and square. It’s extremely refreshing to sit down with a group of devs who have a very successful IP and hear them say that their game is for the players, and truly mean it. Unsurprisingly, this attitude has been paramount in assuring that Wizard101 never strays too far from the zeitgeist, and is the reason all those who have given the new content a try thus far have really enjoyed it.
Wizard101 has been doing so well that Kingsisle has decided to develop a single-player spin-off that takes place in the Wizard101 universe, called Ravenwood Academy. This is an academic-based lite sim where the player must keep up with extra-curricular activities (such as going to dances and sporting events) while following a narrative and making friends with other students. Many of the characters in the game will be recurring characters from Wizard101, and Ravenwood Academy will have the usual quirks of the Wizard101 universe.
The devs explained that one of the complaints they consistently got throughout Wizard101’s playtime is that despite it taking place around academics, you never actually go to school. For the single-player experience, they wanted to focus on a narrative that really leaned into the school experience, a la the Persona series. They wanted to make a narrative with branching paths and decisions that affected the game in a way that made sense, without players being overwhelmed or suffocated by choices. Multiple endings will be based on the choices you make, which characters you befriend and which you make rivals, and what classes you take throughout your school year. Ravenwood Academy is still pretty early in development, and there isn’t a set release date for it yet, but it seems like an interesting and exciting advancement in the Wizard101 universe, and something to check out if you or your children are interested.
My conversation with Kingsisle Entertainment was one of my highlights of PAX West 2024. They made it a point to tell me that many of the convention goers were calling their booth the “nostalgia booth.” Engaging in both Wizard101 and the remake of FATE: Reawakened made many feel like it was the 2000s again, and Ravenwood Academy sandwiched in the middle completed the whole picture. While I unfortunately didn’t get a chance to play any of the games, the passion and excitement surrounding the devs who talked to me about their upcoming projects was infectious. They really seem like they want to take Kingsisle Entertainment to the next level, and it would appear that their strategy is to make good, user-friendly, and consumer-forward content that the whole family can enjoy.