"The Tao, he reminds himself, is older than God."
- Bridge Trilogy, William Gibson, Chapter 4, “Formal Absences of Precious Things”
KRDOC9–10: The Fall of British Hong Kong
The Fall of British Hong Kong is now streaming on all platforms! Our Chinese Civil War project turned into the biggest production we’ve ever undertaken – a 2h30 epic , which will be released in two parts on November 23 and November 30.
We’re kicking off this release month by dropping the entire first chapter early: The Severn Note, depicting the fall of the British Empire in 1925, sparked by a German intervention in Hong Kong.
The Fall of British Hong Kong – KRDOC9 Intro Animatic
With KRDOC9, we’re continuing the tradition of bespoke intro animatics showcasing pivotal moments from Kaiserreich lore. The Severn Note, also known as the Fall of British Hong Kong, depicts Governor Claud Severn petitioning for German protection – effectively marking the start of the Shanghai Scramble and the collapse of the British Empire.
Longtime fans will spot Nicholas Faircrest in this animatic – a character designed and voiced by our own Alex Dunk. It felt only right to bring him back for such a defining story. Visually, this animatic also experiments with a new “faded color” palette, a first step toward our evolving machimatic art style (See section below).
I’ve always said this opening event stands among the best creative writing in Kaiserreich lore. Bringing Flamefang’s letter to full animatic form was a no-brainer. Massive thanks to Alex Dunk and Eamon Kinsman for their stellar narration, and to YanaDM for her evocative illustration work. As always, gratitude to the Kaiserreich China Rework team for building such an incredible alternate history world.
The New Machimatic Art Style
Machimatic storytelling is, in many ways, what I always wanted World of Kaiserreich to become. This new mixed media style combines modded game cinematics, illustrated overlays, and the unreliable narrator popularized by the very first 'World of Kaiserreich - Union of Britain'. Our new Machimina artist Blarcy has been key to developing this new visual style. For KRDOC9, we are using machinima in the opening 'Fall of British Hong Kong' and the chapter 'Letters From Jinhua'.
However, the machinima parts in KRDOC9 are really more of an opening experiment, as we primarily intend to deploy this art style fully in our Cold War standalone video. Here, we can't source any footage of existing German cold war shorts as easily. Hence, we are now developing dioramas placing German cold war forces in the jungles of Vietnam.
A new Chinese alt-history
Our journey into Kaiserreich’s Chinese setting began five years ago with the release of the Qing Empire theme and World of Kaiserreich: China videos. To this day, the Qing Empire theme, at 1.5M views I think, remains one of our most-watched releases. We are of course bringing the theme back in full force in KRDOC9 and 10 😀. More importantly, we managed to tap back into the powerful visual library of those old WoKs to give new context to the illustration work made back in the day.
Additionally, we've put a lot of work into recreating new faction emblems, flags and other assorted illustration work to create a visual 'guideline' that helps people understand the complicated geopolitics of China in the era. If you'd like to purchase some of these flags for yourself, make sure to check out our Chinese Historical Flags collection on Flagmaker & Print as well!
📌 Alt-History Flag Designs
📌 Chinese Historical Flags
Sponsorship & Release Schedule
We’re also proud to announce our partnership with Easy Red II, an incredible WWII shooter that recreates historical theaters of war with combined infantry, vehicle, and aircraft gameplay. The developers are fans of the channel, and we’ll be hosting an Easy Red II Steam key giveaway during the release livestreams. To be notified when our livestream is scheduled (we have yet to set the exact date as of writing), make sure to follow us on different social media channels at kaisercatcinema.com/connect.
Until then, this is VincentDN signing off, proud of the work we did!
📌 Show our sponsors some love here: Easy Red II on Steam.