Kingmakers: Assault Rifles, Attack Helicopters and Thousands of Medieval Soldiers

Imagine a medieval battlefield: thousands of men, banners, arrows in the air. Now imagine one of the knights is you, and instead of a sword you are carrying an assault rifle, with an armoured SUV parked behind the hill and an airstrike on speed dial. That is Kingmakers, and it is one of the most-wanted games on Steam.

Kingmakers, from developer Redemption Road and publisher tinyBuild, sends players 500 years back to medieval England to change the course of a bloody war and possibly prevent an apocalypse in a dying future. It is listed as coming soon on Steam, with a playtest sign-up on its page, and one tracking site's estimates place it eighth among all upcoming Steam games with about 1.4 million wishlists.

A war of thousands

The heart of Kingmakers is scale. Battles are fully real-time, with thousands of soldiers fighting at once. According to the developers, each soldier is driven by a multi-threaded AI that handles decision-making, pathfinding and even loyalty, combined with procedural animation so that crowds move and fall convincingly.

Modern weapons, medieval problems

Your arsenal is wildly out of place, and that is the joke and the hook:

• Assault rifles, shotguns and grenade launchers.
• Armoured SUVs, bikes and attack helicopters.
• Airstrikes.

But you are not a one-person army for long. You can switch at any moment between fighting and commanding, giving orders to archers, swordsmen, spearmen and cavalry, building fortifications and delegating to petty officers. Online co-op for up to four players lets a squad attack an enemy castle or defend allied strongholds together.

The long road to release

Kingmakers has been on many wishlists for a long time. Early Access was originally planned for 2025 but slipped, and as of November 2026 the Steam page still says "coming soon" without a date. The open playtest sign-up suggests the team is gathering feedback before committing.

By the numbers

• 500 years: how far back you travel.
• Thousands: of AI soldiers in a single battle.
• 1 to 4: players in online co-op.
• About 1.4 million: estimated Steam wishlists in November 2026, eighth among upcoming games on one tracking site.
• TBA: release date.

Why it matters

Kingmakers is proof that a single brilliant image can sell a game. "Modern soldier in a medieval war" needs no explanation, and it puts the game in a tiny category with few direct competitors. The harder question is technical: making thousands of individual AI soldiers run smoothly on home PCs, with physics and co-op, is a genuine engineering challenge for a small team.

Co-op raises the stakes further. Four players each with an attack helicopter or an armoured SUV, inside a battle of thousands, is a dream scenario for streamers and a nightmare for network code. If Redemption Road pulls it off, few games will look anything like it.

WGC's take: we love the idea, and the wishlist figures show we are not alone. The playtest is the right next step. We would rather see Kingmakers arrive late and stable than on time and broken.

What to watch

Sign up for the playtest on Steam and watch for an Early Access date. For more of the games Steam players want most, read our most-wishlisted indies guide.