In-game: the War Room table, with a campaign drawn in red and blue ink on a parchment map and painted pieces on it

Beyond the King's Words

Rule a kingdom for sixty years through a council of ministers with real personalities, ideologies and grudges. Give your orders in your own words, and live with what they cost.

Sit the first council Join the playtest

A medieval grand strategy game by Rebellion Studio, in development for Windows, macOS and Linux.

In-game · the War Room table

Consequences you can read

Every change of heart is written down with its reason. You always know why the Chancellor turned cold.

This is the game's opening scene and one of the three ways to answer it.

Sit the whole council

The First Council

Spring 1, Year 1 · Kelvarn

The table is older than the kingdom and every seat at it was filled by your father. Lord Malvern rises last and slowest, one hand flat on the oak to carry his weight, and says what none of the others will: the treasury holds what it holds, and a king who confuses his house's purse with the crown's is poor by midsummer.

II. Show me the books before the speeches.

The ledgers come up before the speeches do. The Steward reads with evident pleasure; the Chancellor's hand is very still on the arm of his chair.

Written in the ledger

+8Mirella, Steward the books opened before the speeches
−6Aldwin Reeve, Chancellor the books opened before he could dress them
+1Legitimacy a king who counted first

A strategy game that talks back

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A council with a memory

Ministers with their own ambitions, ideologies and grudges. They warn you, flatter you, plot against each other and sometimes against you.

Rule in your own words

Give an order the way you would say it, or take your advisers' counsel with a click. Either way, the realm answers.

War planned on a table

Lay out a campaign with pieces and ink on the War Room table, then keep your armies fed along roads the enemy wants to cut.

Every feature has to answer one question before it ships: does this make the game better for the person playing it?

The Rebellion rule

Strategy games that break the rules and keep their word.

We are engineers, artists and writers who have played strategy games all our lives. We build deep, living worlds on our own technology, and we build them for one audience: the people who play them.

Meet the studio

Be among the first to rule.

Join the playtest circle. Get early builds, talk straight to the developers, and see your feedback in the game.

Join the playtest