- Andrew Auseon
I’m excited to announce that I’ve been working with THQ Nordic and Kaiko Games on their resurrection of 2012’s open-world combat RPG Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. I am writing and providing narrative direction on the brand new expansion, Fatesworn, which is scheduled for release in 2021.
Crucible: Forge of the Emperor, 2007
I started working on the epic open-world RPG that would become Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning in 2007. Back then, we called it Crucible: Forge of the Emperor. A year or so later, when Big Huge Games went up for sale, the game transformed again into Ascendant, a darker, fairy-tale version of the fantasy RPG. Finally, when 38 Studios purchased the company, our existing game was re purposed and rebuilt as the first title to feature the new high fantasy setting of Amalur. Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning was released in 2012, and two expansions followed.
By now, most people know the exhausting story of what happened after.
Ascendant, 2009
Thankfully, I tend to dwell on the positive. Amalur remains a vast, beautiful, and largely untouched world - a city in a bottle, a galaxy in a marble, a place of pure potential. R.A Salvatore built it with resonant care and affection. So when THQ Nordic approached me about helping to breathe life back into Reckoning, I said yes almost immediately.
For me, Amalur is a place of deep nostalgia, an artifact from another time. I enjoyed writing its stories, the eternal songs of the House of Ballads and the high-seas tales of The Legend of Dead Kel, and I remember long days discussing Alfar ear size, Fae shoulder pads, and whether a player could finish the game wearing nothing but a loin cloth. The team that developed Reckoning has gone on to other things, large and small, but all of us carry a small piece of that world with us, somewhere in our endless inventory.
So if I can help bring Amalur back to life, like a curious scientist with his Well of Souls once did, then so be it. New destiny unlocked.