Kingdom Under Fire II Announced

We have yet to receive an official press release, but IGN is reporting that BLUESIDE has just announced that they'll be teaming up with Phatagram to develop Kingdom of Fire II for the PC and console platforms. Rather than go for a straight action RPG approach, the game will apparently feature a mixture of RTS and MMORPG elements:
Blueside announced today that they'll once again be teaming up with Phantagram to bring PC and console gamers a new installment in the Kingdom Under Fire series. Entitled Kingdom Under Fire II, the new entry in the series will return to the action-RTS style that made the first two games on the original Xbox so memorable. KUF II is scheduled for a 2009 release.

Blueside promises huge tactical battlefields that stretch far beyond what we've seen previously from any series. While KUF II will feature a standalone single-player campaign where players will discover a third faction separate from the Dark Legion and Human Alliance, the truly innovative aspect of Kingdom Under Fire II is its Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) mode which will allow thousands of gamers to connect to a server and play alongside each other.

Blueside's CEO Sejung Kim stated, "We are preparing for an immense game that will feature not only field battles, but also titanic siege engines and thousands of units that will swarm over monstrous fortresses in siege battles of epic proportions."

No specific consoles were mentioned in the release except to say that KUF II is coming to "PC and console platforms." We'll have more on the game that claims to be the first MMOARTS (Massively Multiplayer Online Action Real-Team Strategy) in history as it comes. For now, check out the first screenshots.