Overview
Every building and fortification in Kingmakers is fully destructible. This is not a gimmick or a feature limited to specific scripted moments. Every wall, tower, gate, roof, and floor in the game can be damaged, broken, or completely demolished through player actions. The destruction is dynamic and physics-driven, meaning the way a structure falls depends on where and how it was hit, not on a predetermined animation. This system is one of the primary reasons the development team at Redemption Road Games chose Unreal Engine 4.27 as their engine: it handles the physics processing demands of real-time structural destruction more efficiently for their specific needs.
How Destruction Works
The destruction system in Kingmakers is physics-based. When a structure takes damage, the game calculates which parts of the structure are affected based on the point of impact, the force of the hit, and the material the structure is made from. A wall hit in the center by a tank shell will collapse differently from one hit at the base by an explosive. A wooden house struck by a vehicle will splinter and fold in the direction of impact. A stone tower hit by a trebuchet stone will crack and crumble from the point of impact outward.
This means destruction is not predictable in the way it is in games with canned destruction animations. Two players hitting the same building with the same weapon from different angles will see different results. The emergent nature of the system creates situations the developers did not specifically design but that arise naturally from the physics interactions. A partially collapsed building might leave a ramp of debris that troops can climb, or a wall might fall outward and crush soldiers standing on the other side.
Material Types
Structures in Kingmakers are made from three material types, each with different durability and interaction properties with the game's weapon penetration system.
Material | Durability | Penetration Resistance | Common Structures |
|---|---|---|---|
Plaster | Low | Low (most weapons penetrate) | Interior walls, civilian buildings, peasant housing |
Wood | Medium | Medium (heavier weapons penetrate) | Barricades, palisades, rural structures, outer buildings |
Stone | High | High (only the heaviest weapons penetrate) | Castle walls, towers, keeps, fortified positions |
The material type determines not just how much damage a structure can absorb before collapsing, but also whether weapons fire can pass through it. A sniper round that easily penetrates a plaster wall might be stopped by wood, and stone will block nearly everything except explosives and heavy vehicle-mounted weapons. This creates a tactical layer during castle sieges: the player needs to know what a wall is made of before deciding whether to shoot through it or go around it.
Methods of Destruction
Multiple tools are available for tearing down structures, each suited to different situations.
Method | Best Against | Notes |
|---|---|---|
Explosives (grenades, RPGs, grenade launchers) | All material types | Most versatile option; effective against everything from wooden shacks to stone walls |
Sledgehammers | Plaster and wood | Close-range manual destruction; useful for breaching when explosives are unavailable |
Vehicles (tank, motorcycle, car) | All material types | Driving through a structure; effectiveness depends on vehicle mass and speed |
Siege weapons (trebuchets, ballistae) | Stone and wood fortifications | Long-range destruction of defensive structures |
Renown abilities | Varies | Special abilities tied to player progression; can cause large-scale destruction |
The variety of destruction methods means the player always has options. If explosives are scarce, a tank can ram through a wall. If vehicles are not available, medieval siege equipment can batter down stone defenses over time. Even a sledgehammer will do the job against lighter construction, given enough time and patience. The game ensures that no defensive structure is truly impenetrable, only more or less difficult to break through depending on the tools at hand.
Castle Sieges
The destructible environment system reaches its most complex expression during castle sieges. Medieval castles in Kingmakers are multi-story structures with outer walls, inner walls, towers, gates, courtyards, and keeps. Every floor is navigable, and soldiers can fight room-to-room through the interior. The player can choose to assault a castle by breaching the outer wall with explosives, smashing through a gate with a vehicle, or simply pounding it into rubble from a distance with trebuchets.
Once the outer defenses are breached, the fighting moves inside. Hallways, staircases, and rooms create close-quarters combat environments where SMGs and shotguns replace rifles and the player's medieval troops storm in alongside them. Defenders can barricade doors and hold chokepoints, but the attacker can always find another way in by simply knocking down a wall. The interplay between the destruction system and the interior combat creates a fluid, unpredictable siege experience that differs every time it plays out.
The destruction does not stop at the walls. Interior floors can collapse, dropping soldiers from upper levels to lower ones. Towers can be toppled entirely if their bases take enough structural damage. The cumulative destruction of a prolonged siege can reduce a once-imposing castle to a field of rubble, and the game's physics system handles every step of that transformation in real time.
Tactical Implications
Destructible environments are not just spectacle. They have genuine tactical consequences. Knocking a hole in a castle wall creates a new entry point that bypasses the gate, which may be heavily defended. Collapsing a tower eliminates an elevated archer position. Destroying a bridge cuts off an enemy's retreat or reinforcement route. Using a vehicle to punch through a building can open a shortcut for medieval units to pour through.
On the defensive side, the player can use destruction to their advantage as well. Collapsing a building in the path of an advancing army creates an obstacle that slows their approach. Destroying a bridge forces the enemy to find an alternate crossing, buying time for reinforcements to arrive. The environment is not just a backdrop in Kingmakers; it is an active part of the tactical equation, and players who learn to use destruction creatively will have a significant advantage over those who treat it as a novelty.
Engine Choice
The developers have been transparent about why they chose Unreal Engine 4.27 over the newer UE5. The physics processing required for real-time structural destruction, combined with the demands of animating thousands of medieval soldiers and rendering large-scale battles, made UE4.27 the better fit for their specific technical needs. The engine choice is not a limitation but a deliberate optimization. The game's custom GPU shader-based animation system, which handles NPC animations on the GPU while the CPU sees them in T-pose, is another part of this optimization strategy. Together, these technical decisions allow Kingmakers to run at its target of 60 frames per second on mid-range hardware while maintaining the scale and physical fidelity that define its gameplay.