THQ Nordic announces a remaster for Kingdoms of Amalur Reckoning

[Most of the gaming industry has pressed pause on gaming content, events, and announcements, including our very own platform has been quieter, all in an effort to allow for important voices to be heard in the discussion around equality and racism in our world. If you are curious to learn about the acts being taken by us and how greater the gaming industry is reacting, read our article "A Break From It All..." If you will allow a break from that discussion for just a moment for me to share something that brings me joy. Between Covid and Protests, some times a small break for a little thing that makes one happy is due. The much anticipated news for a long time favorite game of mine is just a small thing that I want to share with my readers and friends. Also, to be clear, know for sure that no lack of taste or poor timing was meant by THQ as they made it clear this was an accidental leak due to mistaken listing on online stores. They simply confirmed the leak with a promise of news to come]

(ORIGINAL GAME TRAILER - Not Remaster)

The year is 2012. I am fresh out of high school and working my way through school as a gaming/electronics specialist at Target. I spent my days organizing video games on shelves, and Skyrim was all the rage. It was the biggest hit of the year just prior and a game that will stand the test of time as a true classic. I will be honest, sometimes those games come along that everyone praises, gets lots of awards, but you yourself personally don't care for, and Skyrim is one of those games for me. I have tried to start the game no less than three times and each just couldn't get into it. While every gamer I knew was playing Skyrim, I was playing it's rival, Kingdoms of Amalur Reckoning came out a few months after Skyrim, and it was in my opinion the superior game. I loved its beautiful bright colorful world in stark contrast to the dark drab grey green world of Skyrim. Its combat was absolutely phenomenal as well, combined with fantastic character customization and progression. The story of Amalur's development is a sad one as 38 Studios only was able to make this one game before going under. I always looked at it as they gave everything they had and still lost. It is a real tragedy we only ever got this one game from an otherwise incredibly talented development team. I feel is largely Bethesda's Skyrim to blame as the game was critically praised it just didn't do well commercially. Competition from Skyrim's I believe is what caused 38 Studio's to not be able to sell the copies needed to recoup the vastly expensive development of such a ambitious and large open world RPG.

(Remaster Screenshot)

Kingdoms of Amalur succeeds in almost every way from world, to art style, to combat. I have regularly referred to it as one of my top 10 games and all time favorites, but sadly it has aged. The game visually doesn't hold up 8 years later. Back in 2018 when the rights to Amalur were purchased by THQ from 38 Studios, it was hoped that a remaster or sequel would soon arise, and thankfully this past week with the news of a remaster, humorously titled "Re-reckoning", has leaked with confirmation from THQ. I am so excited to have news of this game coming. We know that the game will be coming to PC, Xbox One, and PS4 in August of 2020. We do not know how it will work with next-gen, if there are any special upgrade options for current owners of the game, or if there will be the rumored Switch version. We do known pricing with the standard version will cost $40 and the collectors edition complete with a statue will cost $110. The remaster is described as a visual upgrade, complete with all DLC, and various unknown "gameplay enhancements". Screenshots look beautiful and I can't wait to get my hands on this game.