King of Kings 3 (KoK3), published by gamigo and developed by Lager, has gathered a lot of attention in its native Asia because of its interesting and dynamic guild system.

In KoK3, players can join guilds and take on special guild quests starting at level 20. Guilds have levels in KoK3 ranging from 1 to 5. Once a guild reaches level 2, it can have 28 members and declare war on enemy guilds to gain control over their NPCs which in turn provide special bonuses to players. At level 3, once the player has reached level 50, up to seven guilds can band together to form a “legion.” Once a legion is constructed, members of the legion can begin building a legion camp by setting out in the game world and collecting materials to create buildings which add further bonuses to the guilds strength. Added to this, legion quests now become available which aids guilds in reaching the highest levels. Once the legion has reached level 5, the “epic kingdom quests” culminating in taking on Commander Kaizer and his army are accessed. If a legion doesn’t kill Kaizer on their first attempt, Kaizer is weakened by each attack, so its really only a matter of time before the legion’s leader will be crowned the new king.

Being king has its perks.  Everyone in the legion under the new king’s rule is now granted a monthly salary which they can use to buy special weapons, armor, upgrades and other items – a player’s incentive for helping the legion to achieve its goal. Another neat in-game treat for beating Kaizer is that the legion camp will be transformed into a royal city with barracks, factories and religious altars all dedicated to that legion’s glorious leader. The legion commander gets a special mount to dictate his regal awesomeness.

With all this going in its favor, its easy to see why KoK3 is making a splash over in Asia. The unique guild system is really something that sets it apart from other MMORPGs with its intense, cooperative game play that asks players to be ruthless and cunning in order to achieve the highest ranks. The fact that one player alone is marked as the “King of Kings” per guild is a daring MMO incentive that will have thousands of players brutally battling it out to make the top spot. Not only will this take a lot of personal skill, but they’ll need to be an extremely social and dedicated player in order to build up a proper legion to finish off the Commander. Perhaps the coolest aspect of this style of game play is that the single leader of the guild must be worthy of so many following in his wake, ready to do battle on his or her behalf. In other games, guild members tend to balance out equally when the highest ranks are achieved, but here, this single feature will force a few legendary players to go above and beyond what most MMOs require in order to achieve such a high rank. It’s interesting to think about the lengths and game play quality that the player must exert in order to become the singular  King of Kings.

It uses that familiar Japanime style that is so popular in free-to-play MMOs coming out of Asia. The graphics are very similar to Nexon titles such as Vindictus.