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We’ve been wanting to self-publish for a while. GC: Did you approach a publisher for Stronghold Crusader II, or did you decide you weren’t going to use them from the very beginning? We actually did do a kind of follow-on to Stronghold 2, and then Stronghold 3, the follow-on to Stronghold 2, so there has actually been one in between but it wasn’t a Crusader, it was a Legends – a similar style of game in that it was a skirmish game except that you were skirmishing against magical opponents.
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We wanted to hold it and they wouldn’t let us hold it, so it had to come out and it was in a bit of a poor shape. We then did various iterations with other publishers, most recently with Stronghold 3, our last publisher-driven title, which came out way too early. It took the original game, which is a mix of city builder and real-time strategy and added a skirmish play – which introduced AI characters who play a bit like humans but are obviously less charming but do things quicker and you could have as many of those as you want which adds complexity to it. Then Crusader came on as a result of that, which built on the back of Stronghold I. Stronghold, the first title came out in 2001, very successfully, published under Take-Two’s wing, and that was good. SB: The new title is Stronghold Crusader II. GC: So for those that don’t know, what exactly is the new game? And when you say this is your first self-funded title, how has the whole process differed from the games you’ve made before? But no, we’re not line a one-man band doing Flappy Bird on iOS – not that kind of indie. SB: We’re independent and we are self-funded – with this being our first self-funded title and yes, we kind of do what we want which means making our own mistakes as well as making some good calls and being flexible.
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SB: We were established in 1999, which is quite old in this trade. Are Bungie indie? They’re independent but they don’t exactly fit the label nowadays. I don’t know, is that indie? It’s not Destiny.
Stronghold crusader 2 Pc#
But Steam, our PC stuff, we only have four coders at peak times, and three artists. That’s our online title, Stronghold Kingdoms, which is doing OK for us in the online space. We’ve gone up and down – we’re at quite a high watermark now at 40 people. We’ve been around since ’99, down in good old south of the river Battersea. Where it just meant that you’re not owned by a publisher. GC: I hesitated calling you indie there, because you’re kind of the old school version of the idea. We are pretty much still kind of indie and that’s the way we like it. Sometimes you get something that’s a great idea, sometimes you’re hoisted by your own petard. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. With Stronghold 1 we ended up thinking we’ll put a fire system in a week to go, we’re not scared of throwing in crazy new ideas right at the last minute. GC: Oh, so you’re not done yet? Is that normal for you, or are indies always late? I’m doing press then hopping back on to it. SB: We’ve got three days left to go, so this is early in the day for me. GC: So at this point I imagine you’ve finally finished working on the game?