Kingdoms of Amalur ain’t dead yet.
The remake of Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is coming to the Nintendo Switch in March. The remake is aptly named Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning, and was released for other platforms in September 2020. But first, this release requires a little more context than other titles.
Kingdoms of Providence, Rhode Island
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is an action RPG, originally released in 2012. Developed by 38 Studios and Big Huge Games, the game was published by EA. Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning was the only game released by 38 Studios before their bankruptcy only months after the game’s release, due in part to an inability to pay back their loan from the state of Rhode Island.
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning was a commercial success and was met with warm critical reception. 38 Studios had plans for an entirely new game, along with an Amalur MMORPG. Despite the game’s immediate success, 38 Studios was unable to pay its debt to Rhode Island, quickly going bankrupt.
It’s also worth noting that the founder of 38 Studios is pretty interesting himself. 38 Studios was founded by Major League Baseball World Series pitcher, Curt Schilling. While his baseball career was largely successful, his video game ventures were not. He is now an outspoken conservative, currently working for Breitbart news.
The case between 38 Studios and the state of Rhode Island is an interesting story. It’s full of political intrigue and ends in a federal case. Without going too far down the rabbit hole, Polygon covered the story extensively.
Needless to say, 38 Studios’ legal troubles led to the studio dissolving entirely. The studio split up and sold its assets, including everything to do with Kingdoms of Amalur. In 2018, THQ Nordic acquired the rights to the Kingdoms of Amalur intellectual property, leading to the remake we are seeing today.
EA still owns the distribution rights for the 2012 release of Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, with THQ Nordic being the owner of Re-reckoning.
Re-reckoning
In September of 2020, Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-reckoning was released for Xbox One, Playstation 4, and PC. Months later, it’s coming to the Switch.
The announcement that Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-reckoning was coming to Nintendo Switch was posted in this Tweet:
https://twitter.com/ReckoningGame/status/1351530038169100290?s=20
According to the official Re-reckoning Twitter account, the physical copy of the game will include no downloads. Presumably, this means that there will be no big day-1 patch to wait for. Just boot the game up and go.
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Despite Kingdoms of Amalur’s long, strange journey, it’s definitely a game worth checking out. While its studio couldn’t last, the game obviously has some staying power. It is a fairly expansive RPG experience that a lot of fans missed on its initial release. By nature of 38 Studio’s legal issues and subsequent failure, Amalur is currently a standalone experience.
Hopefully, this signals that new entries to the series may be coming. Until then, Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-reckoning will be released to the Switch both physically and on the Nintendo eShop on March 16th, 2021.
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