Kingpin is one of those forgotten Quake 2 engine classics. Made by Xatrix Entertainment (who also made Redneck Rampage), it was a shockingly violent game that sold itself on the controversy surrounding it. Much like other 90s shooters like Duke Nukem 3D it was seen as a bad influence. Even so, Kingpin has become a bit of a cult hit of a game.
Though most gamers will probably remember its flaws as much as its strengths. Developer Slipgate Ironworks (Bombshell, Rad Rodgers) have taken it upon themselves to do something about this. Published by 3D Realms, Kingpin: Reloaded is a complete overhaul of the game. It seeks to fix the flaws of the original game, make it more playable on modern PCs, and of course, give it some updated visuals.
A Delayed Remake
Kingpin: Reloaded was supposed to come out this summer, but Slipgate announced today in a Steam news update that due to numerous reasons it has been delayed until 2021. Since the source code for the original game has been lost, the team decided to “recreate” the game in a modern engine. A similar approach to Nightdive’s remakes in their Kex engine.
However, the developers found that this didn’t fully recreate everything, such as the original pathfinding AI. So their new approach is now to reverse engineer the original game. This way they will be essentially recreating the original source from scratch. This is what they have been working on for most of 2020.
The good news is that they’ve reached a stage where they are almost finally done. In addition to solving the programming issues, they’ve also been making new textures. These have all been recreated from scratch, with no AI upscaling. The result will probably be much better.
In January we’re entering the next stage of development – Putting it all together, which is at the point where we’ll finally be able to share more videos, gameplay, screenshots, and open up the closed-beta.
In addition to Kingpin Reloaded, Slipgate is also involved with a remake of SiN. SiN Reloaded is being developed with Nightdive and will be published by 3D Realms. The game is a spiritual sequel to Duke Nukem 3D, something that will be welcome in the 3D Realms roster.