King's Bounty is a turn-based fantasy video game designed by Jon Van Caneghem and published by New World Computing in 1990.

The game follows the player's character, a hero of King Maximus, appointed with the job of retrieving the Sceptre of Order from the forces of chaos, led by Arech Dragonbreath.

A Sega Genesis port was developed and released in North America on February 21, 1991, with a multitude of graphical changes.

The player leads the hero and his army across the four continents, acquiring up to 25 pieces of a map revealing the hidden location to the Sceptre of Order before King Maximus dies.

If the sceptre is not recovered before King Maximus dies (the time varies depending on difficulty setting), the game ends in defeat.

Some of these chests represent various events that increase the hero's inherent abilities, such as magical strength or weekly income; others may contain one of eight artifacts, which themselves provide a piece of the map, in addition to conferring their own unique powers.

Most of these creatures are significant upgrades from the normal human forces available to the player at the King's castle, and are required to defeat the tougher villain armies.

[citation needed] Combat in King's Bounty occurs when sieging an occupied castle or engaging a wandering army on the main map.

During combat, the player can cast one spell per turn that cause damage via lightning, fireball, or turn undead, can resurrect dead troops, teleport a unit to an open position, freeze an enemy unit so it cannot move, or increase an existing troop through cloning (Clone).

The Mega Drive/Genesis port of King's Bounty is notably different from the PC version of the game, the most obvious change being the move into the realm of real time.

This makes the game arguably more difficult, as a careful player of the DOS version could often maneuver past several wandering armies at a time without being successfully engaged.

Nevertheless, the graphics remain trademark of New World Computing, with other games like The Faery Tale Adventure appearing similar but featuring different gameplay.

The 2001 PlayStation 2 title Heroes of Might and Magic: Quest for the Dragon Bone Staff is an enhanced remake of King's Bounty made by 3DO.

In 2012, King's Bounty: Warriors of the North was released, still using the original engine from the prior games, but with new units, protagonist and story.

The game includes a lot of easter eggs, science jokes and various additional objects like Titan of Braavos and so on.

The two versions of King's Bounty wound up releasing about 9 months apart, and after NWC had sold TFG to former Games Workshop Vice-President John Olsen.

[12] Retroactively, the game was reviewed by Sega-16.com, who - in consideration of its influence on the Heroes of Might and Magic series - gave it a perfect 10.0 score.