Dungeon Keeper is back and that is amazing! Or is it? Dungeon Keeper is a real time strategy and tower defense game released by Peter Molyneux’s company Bullfrog Productions in the late 90′s. It’s a beloved game series for any nostalgic retro gamer that released two games before Bullfrog joined Electronic Arts. The hope for a third game lived on, much like the wish for Half Life 3, but it was sadly forgotten after 14 years of anticipation and waiting. Until now.
A new cartoony look to the dungeon layout
Electronic Arts is a legendary killer of classic games but recently announced that they were putting Mythic Entertainment to work, a development team the focuses primarily on creating online multiplayer games, to create a new Dungeon Keeper. I was extremely excited by this news, until I read more on the game. It is a Free-to-Play mobile game for iOS and Android. The last time EA attempted this with Ultima Forever, also a Mythic game, it completely failed but perhaps they’re hoping that the IP saves their new game. I’m not sure about this.
The face of comical evil (Mobile Horny)
The face of true evil (Classic Horny)
I’ve been reading through people’s reactions and I’m finding a pattern within them. They always start with the same excitement I had when I first learned of the planning and release of a new DK and then it quickly turns into disgust. From what I’ve read, building and management takes time. A lot of time. Build projects can take days so you may only end up playing the game for maybe ten minutes a day before running out of things to do, unless you spend money. That’s the catch. Much like those infamous Facebook games or any F2P game, you have to spend real money to get anything done in an efficient and timely manner but nobody wants to spend $10 a day just to make a bigger fortress. The other problem with the new game is that it’s fanbase is in it’s 30′s to 40′s which is the demographic that rarely plays mobile games. Most reviews that I’ve read involved a person playing the game for about a week before deleting it out of frustration and annoyance.
If only you hadn’t chosen the freemium model…
I can’t personally test and review the game because I own a Windows Phone which rarely gets anything produced for it. However, from what I’ve seen, the new Dungeon Keeper game is not one that I would want anyway. If you’re a fan of the series like I am and want to feel that nostalgic sensation, you can just go to Good Old Games (gog.com) and buy the original Dungeon Keepers for $6 each. Conversely, you could blow the dust off of your copy of Dungeon Keeper 2 which is probably sitting at the bottom of a box in the garage, boot up Windows 98 on an old PC, install it, and have the greatest few hours with a nostalgia high.