Kingdom Under Fire: The Crusaders

Kingdom Under Fire: The Crusaders is a tactical wargame developed by the Korean studio Phantagram for the Xbox. It is the sequel to the 2001 game Kingdom Under Fire: A War of Heroes, and continues its storyline. Kingdom Under Fire: The Crusaders combines third-person action and role-playing elements in its gameplay, which differs from its predecessor.

Its prequel is Kingdom Under Fire: Heroes. Another sequel was released in late 2019 entitled Kingdom Under Fire II for Windows.

A Windows port was released for Steam in February 2020, and resurrected by the co-developer of the original Xbox version, Blueside. A DRM-free version was released on GOG.com in early April 2020. The modern Windows release came with several enhancements including full controller support, plus an all-new mouse & keyboard mode (Though, a gamepad is recommended); modern resolutions and widescreen view.

Gameplay
The gameplay of Kingdom Under Fire: The Crusaders contains elements from the Dynasty Warriors games and aspects of Real-time strategy and role-playing games. As well as controlling the main character, the player fights with multiple armies or "units", which are controlled in real-time with either a minimap or the main screen. When the main character's unit engages in combat with an enemy unit, the gameplay is similar to Dynasty Warriors.

Any unit in close-quarters combat cannot be used for anything else until the combat is resolved; an exception to this is when two units are in close-quarter combat with the enemy: one unit can retreat while the other keeps the enemy unit occupied.

Reception
The Xbox version received "favorable" reviews, while the PC version received "mixed" reviews, according to the review aggregation website Metacritic. In Japan, where the former console version was ported and published by Jaleco on January 27, 2005, Famitsu gave it a score of 29 out of 40.

The Xbox version was nominated for the "Most Surprisingly Good Game" and "Best Strategy Game" awards at GameSpot's Best and Worst of 2004 Awards, both of which went to The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay and Rome: Total War, respectively.