Kingpin: Life of Crime originally came out in 1999. It was developed by Xatrix Entertainment. These guys had already received some amount of fame for their work on the 1997 FPS Redneck Rampage. Redneck Rampage was more of a comedic take on the FPS genre, heavily spoofing American hillbilly culture, complete with a psychobilly soundtrack. Despite its rather high difficulty, it received favorable reviews from the press at the time.
Xatrix later worked on the expansion pack “The Reckoning” for Quake 2. This most likely helped them greatly in developing their own game for the Quake 2 engine. And released around the same time as the underrated FPS SiN, both of these games helped prove a lot more could be done with the engine than boring corridors.
Kingpin stood out at the time for featuring location-based damage. At the time, this was a rising trend in shooters, further popularized by its inclusion in the aforementioned SiN and the later released Soldier of Fortune. It helped give Kingpin a certain gritty realism as certain parts of the body would receive more damage, and wounds would show on specific locations on the enemy’s model.
3D Realms Remasters A 1999 Classic FPS
3D Realms has a long-standing history in the FPS genre. Their 90’s releases of games such as Duke Nukem 3D, Shadow Warrior, and their involvement with classics such as Blood, Max Payne, and Prey has shown they are more than qualified to do a modern remaster of Kingpin.
So, it was a welcome surprise when they announced Kingpin Reloaded at their PAX South 2020 booth. No doubt this made the show more exciting than usual as they also showed exclusive gameplay of their upcoming cyberpunk First-Person Slasher Ghostrunner and their upcoming Quake engine FPS Wrath: Aeon of Ruin.
With their recently released Ion Fury, 3D Realms are definitely back in full force in the FPS genre with Kingpin: Reloaded now also in their catalog.
The remastered version will feature both a classic mode for those purists who just want the original game, as well as an enhanced mode with improved textures and overall graphics quality. 4K and 60 FPS support have been promised. The game has also been rebalanced and polished more, promising an even better experience than the original 1999 version.
The game will be coming to PC both on Steam and as a physical big box release. It will also be on the Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch. So far, no news on an exact release date has been shared, but the game is slated for a Q2 2020 release. So if you want some sweet old-school FPS action, Kingpin: Reloaded might be your next purchase.
You can find more info over at the 3D Realms website.