Kingdom III: Rising Realms Preview – Long live the new king, the third of his name

The useful part

As human populations have grown, we've had to come up with all kinds of strange naming conventions. Carry it on past a second generation 'Junior' and you'll hear of people (often Americans) nicknamed 'Trip' or 'Trey' when they have a III appended to their name. Not so for the royals, though, who would stick with 'the Third' or 'the Fourth'.

How it works

• The thin strip of land splitting the screen in two, with the sky, buildings, trees and your ruler reflected in the shimmering water of the lower third of the screen.
• It's a style that hasn't significantly changed over the past decade, though Kingdom III:
• Rising Realms is naturally the latest and refinement of this and looks simply lovely.
• Put side by side with its predecessors, it really will feel like the third of its name.

What to take from it

It breaks up that land strip, so it's no longer a uniform line into the water, the pixel art characters, structures and environments look to have jumped ahead in terms or resolution and fidelity, and I've no doubt that the lighting and reflection effects have been further refined as well.

Details worth keeping

Rising Realms – you can just call it 'Kingdom Three'. Kingdom remains as gorgeously distinctive now as it did back in 2015. The core remains the same here, as you ride around on horseback, all high and mighty, flinging coins at the vagrants you come across to recruit them to your cause, bringing them out of the wilderness and to your fledgling settlement.