King's Quest: Rubble Without a Cause, the second of five chapters in The Odd Gentlemen's King's Quest, will begin rolling out in two weeks, publisher Sierra announced today.
The episode will be available Dec. 15 on PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 in North America. It will launch the following day on Windows PC, Xbox 360 and Xbox One, and in the rest of the world on PS3 and PS4.
Rubble Without a Cause tells a story from the beginning of King Graham's reign as ruler of Daventry, when a group of goblins holds the kingdom hostage. It takes place a long time after A Knight to Remember, the first chapter of King's Quest, which focused on Graham as a knight in training. You can watch a 30-second teaser trailer above.
Chapter 2 is also arriving long after the episodic series' debut — A Knight to Remember launched at the end of July. Asked about the four-and-a-half-month lag time between the first and second episodes, The Odd Gentlemen told Polygon that the studio has stuck to its plan; the company announced at PAX Prime in late August that Rubble Without a Cause was scheduled to launch this fall, sometime before the end of the year.
Matt Korba, co-founder of The Odd Gentlemen and creative director on King's Quest, said that the series' chapter-based structure isn't the same as the schedule of an episodic series from, say, Telltale Games. The chapters of King's Quest are "longer and more involved" than those kinds of episodes, according to Korba.
"This type of story means in each chapter we need to build a new model and animation sets for our main character as well as supporting cast," said Korba. "All chapters have an overarching story that ties everything together but not in the traditional serialized 'to be continued' way."
As a result, said Korba, the long gap between Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 of King's Quest won't really be a problem for players picking up months after they left off. "It's not like Battlestar Galactica where you will need a primer to remember all the micro events that happened in the last story," Korba explained. He added that future chapters will roll out at a quicker pace.
The Odd Gentlemen is also changing up the way King's Quest plays from chapter to chapter. Korba told Polygon that while A Knight to Remember was based on the open puzzle-solving structure of the first two King's Quest games, Rubble Without a Cause is "more inspired by [King's Quest 3: To Heir is Human]. It's a bit darker and centers on an escape mechanic." The Odd Gentlemen also added the ability to skip dialogue.
For more on King's Quest, check out our review of A Knight to Remember, the PS4 version of which is available free on PlayStation Plus for the month of December.