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The King’s Dilemma video game is coming at the end of this month

Alone in Ankist.

The video game version of The King’s Dilemma board game is set to be released by the end of this month.

After being officially announced in July 2022, The King’s Dilemma: Chronicles – a video game adaptation of the legacy board game originally published in 2019 – has been given a final release date of January 30th.

Based on The King’s Dilemma board game, Chronicles has players becoming the head of an advisory council for the monarch of the fictional kingdom of Ankist. Each member of the council is aligned with a particular political, religious or ideological viewpoint, with their aim being to steer the king’s decisions to be in line with their house’s interests. As the head of the council, players can choose to listen to the advice of the other houses and members or can decide to push the monarch towards decisions that benefit themselves.

A screenshot of The King's Dilemma: Chronicles video game.

Chronicles plays out like a single-player storytelling video game, with players being faced with a series of decisions with varying levels of difficult consequences. Players can decide to influence the king to make certain decisions, whether in an attempt to genuinely help the people of Ankist or to increase their power and/or wealth. Throughout the game, players can view the various issues facing the people of Ankist via a map, with each decision made potentially having consequences further down the line. The video game enables players to experience different storylines depending on their choices, with each playthrough being different.

The King’s Dilemma: Chronicles was developed and published by Big Trouble, a digital studio that was founded by Lorenzo Silva, the CEO of the company responsible for the original legacy board game, Horrible Guild, and a co-designer on The King’s Dilemma – alongside Hjalmar Hach.

In the tabletop version of The King’s Dilemma, three to five players take the role of council members tasked with advising the monarch on a series of ruling decisions. Players will have different aims depending on whichever house they choose to play as, with each house believing that Ankist should be ruled in a certain way.

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Every session of King’s Dilemma revolves around a different issue that the King must resolve, with the players discussing which approach to take and collectively voting to pursue an action. As the fantasy board game campaign progresses, new elements will be opened up to the players such as gameplay mechanics or aspects that advance the game’s story. As a legacy title, The King’s Dilemma can only be played through once, with every group’s playthrough being entirely unique to them.

A sequel to The King’s Dilemma, The Queen’s Dilemma, is set to be released sometime this year after a successful Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign ran last October.

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Alex Meehan avatar
Alex Meehan: After writing for Kotaku UK, Waypoint and Official Xbox Magazine, Alex became a member of the Dicebreaker editorial family. Having been producing news, features, previews and opinion pieces for Dicebreaker for the past three years, Alex has had plenty of opportunity to indulge in her love of meaty strategy board games and gothic RPGS. Besides writing, Alex appears in Dicebreaker’s D&D actual play series Storybreakers and haunts the occasional stream on the Dicebreaker YouTube channel.
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