King's Bounty: Legions Enters Open Beta

Beta access keys are no longer required to give 1C and Nival's King's Bounty: Legions a whirl, as the Facebook-powered strategy/RPG has been opened up for public beta testing as of this morning.  The press release to follow:
Nival Unlocks Gates to King's Bounty: Legions Open Beta

Assemble Armies, Engage In Turn-Based Combat On Facebook

LOS ANGELES - August 9, 2011 - Nival, a global developer and publisher of social strategy games, lowered the drawbridge today for all gamers to rule their friend list in King's Bounty: Legions. Nival announced beta testing is open for King's Bounty: Legions, a turn-based social strategy game playable on Facebook.

"It was recently reported 80 million Facebook users are playing strategy games," said David D Christensen, general manager for Nival's North American operations and executive producer of King's Bounty: Legions. "I'd play matches against all 80 million to demonstrate King's Bounty: Legions is the best strategy gaming experience on Facebook.)

King's Bounty: Legions puts players in the role of a young warlord, who gains experience while commanding troops from three distinct factions on the battlefield. The factions included in the beta are:

'¢ Kingdom: Noble knights, scurvy pirates and powerful magicians are all part of this mighty class that fight for the king.
'¢ Chaos: Necromancers, zombies and possessed bears will fall under players' control after players conquer them in battle.
'¢ Beasts: Giant serpents, dragonflies and monstrous plants unleash wicked attacks under players' command.

With more than 30 unique units, players truly customize armies to match their preferred tactical approach to combat; especially as each character class holds distinct advantages over others in the turn-based battle system.

King's Bounty: Legions will be a cross-platform title, appearing initially on Facebook, and later on iOS and Android platforms for mobile and tablet devices. Players play King's Bounty: Legions for free and may choose to purchase in-game items. Nival plans to regularly update King's Bounty: Legions with new features, including fighting units, maps, quests and social elements.

The title is being developed by KranX Productions. King's Bounty® and King's Bounty: Legionsâ„¢ are provided under license through 1C Company. Players interested in learning more about King's Bounty: Legions can visit Facebook.

About Nival
Nival is a global developer and publisher of social strategy games with extensive experience in strategy game development and massively multiplayer online game publishing. Nival is headquartered in Moscow and was founded by Russian games industry veteran Sergey Orlovskiy, who currently serves as company president. With offices in Moscow and St. Petersburg, Russia; Minsk, Belarus and Los Angeles; Nival currently has more than 200 employees and three development studios. Nival also operates the popular Russian-language gaming platform, ZZima.com. For more information about Nival, please visit www.nival.com.

About KranX Productions
KranX Productions is a development studio and production house founded by the well-respected Russian computer game developer Andrey "KranK" Kuzmin. KranX has turned its primary focus to the development of online games and currently has a team of more than 30 developers with experience in developing full-scale titles for PC and console platforms.

About 1C Company
1C Company is widely acknowledged as a critically-acclaimed games developer and has several internal studios responsible for products such as IL-2 Sturmovik series and the Theatre of War series. 1C Company also works as the international specialist publisher and producer with many independent third-party studios among its partners. Over the course of the years, 1C Company has produced and released worldwide over 100 projects for various platforms, including the award-winning Space Rangers series, Men of War series, and King's Bounty series. 1C Company's products enjoy top sales both in retail and in digital space, all over the world.
If you spend some time with the game, please share your impressions on how it compares to the earlier iterations and how prevalent the microtransactions are.