Amazon has announced that it will give Prime subscribers 20 free games during the month of August, including Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation, Baldur’s Gate II, and Loop Hero.
Massive multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) have been synonymous with PC gaming for years. Over the past decade, as consoles have become more powerful, we’ve seen an abundance make their way to our living rooms — and each one has approached the challenge of paring down such a massive experience into the confines of a controller in their own way; it’s no easy task.
Now, Throne and Liberty is next in line to try and address that challenge – but it has some serious pedigree behind it. With the experience of seasoned MMO developer NCSoft (Lineage II, Aion) at the helm, along with Amazon Games, the teams are looking to make their mark by bringing this massive online experience to console, with the goal of leaving no player behind.
“Having a game that is welcoming to new and veteran MMO players has been at the forefront of our design choices — we understand this genre is still (relatively) new in the console space and providing a smooth first-time user experience will be critical to attracting new players,” says Globalization Design Manager at Amazon Games, Daniel Lafuente.
A few weeks ago, during Sumer Game Fest: Play Days, we had a chance to go hands-on with the current build of the game to experience this ourselves. Our session saw us jump into a 6-player co-op experience through the Roaring Temple, which gave us a taste of how a balanced party can work together to swiftly move through a dungeon, culling enemies left and right, leading up to its central boss: the massive, Chimera-like King Chimaerus.
To help with refining that onboarding experience — the game soft-launched in Korea seven months ago – the team has been constantly examining data to learn what their most devoted players are seeking when they dive into Throne and Liberty for the first time. This has helped balance the game’s unique take on the traditional class system.
Instead of being intrinsically tied to your character, progression is more equipment based, falling into four major categories: Gear Level, Traits, Skills, and Weapon Mastery, each of which grants you progress towards your overall Combat Score. This is where the game’s dual weapon system comes in, where each weapon you have equipped will give you access to a different set of abilities, letting you mix and match, giving you upwards of 20 unique combinations to play with.
“One of my favorite things about the dual weapon system, is that you can still play your classic archetypes but with some accents or flair of another archetype mixed in,” explains Lafuente. “The Trait system is one of several different ways that players can alter their build and playstyle, allowing them to equip different stats onto their gear which can have a big impact on their character’s overall style of play. The ability to learn how to maximize the benefit from Traits will be a key aspect to every player’s progression within Throne and Liberty.”
Another of the impressive elements we saw on display during our hands-on time was the incredibly rich and detailed character creator. You’ll be able to choose from many amazing looking presets or customize your character through a deep set of configurations — or even upload a picture of yourself which will transform your character to look like you.
“One of our core beliefs is that player self-expression is paramount,” explains Lafuente. “We want every player to have as many tools as possible to express the fantasy they want to play with their character; the character customization features in Throne and Liberty are top tier in that aspect.”
Another unique element for Throne and Liberty will be its dynamic weather system with changing states that can affect gameplay in different ways. From flooding passageways, to unlocking areas of the map, to altering abilities and how they are used in combat — the environment is going to be a significant element to consider when playing.
“Players and Guilds will be able to harness the weather and call down different elemental flurries which provide boosts or alterations to certain abilities, potentially turning the tide in battle. The world itself is vast and filled with verticality, which adds another element of strategy within the massive scale combat players can expect,” Lafuente elaborates.
From this experience, I also got to play around with Throne and Liberty’s unique morph system, which allows players to turn into mounts, elemental creatures that can travel across water, air, and land. With just a toggle on the controller, I would shift into my “mount” as a bird to help me fly down from a high ledge and avoid fall damage, or into a tiger to help me sprint through the dungeon and catch up with my crew, or an otter to help me glide through the water.
These unique morph abilities tap into the lore of Throne and Liberty, which takes place in the fantasy world of Solisium, a land where fragments of the Sealstone that held the Goddess of Destruction, Sylaveth, have scattered across the world. These fragments have created a great deal of conflict not only because of their value, but their ability to develop powers in those who can collect them. This is where you and your friends come in; working to get your hands on these unique resources, embarking on a grand adventure across the land of Solisium, battling unique monsters, and taking on other rival players across this massive, free-to-play online world.
As I mentioned earlier, trying to bring this massive experience into a controller is a monumental task. I did stumble a bit initially on getting my head around the wealth of options available to me at my fingertips. But as my session continued, I found it fluid and natural. And although I only played for just under an hour, I could see myself getting used to this configuration if given more time with it. This is an area that NCSoft remains committed to, iterating on what is typically a heavy keyboard and mouse experience for a controller-friendly game.
“We’ve made several alterations to how the controller handles – button mappings, targeting, and movement are the three most critical elements we’ve been continuously iterating on over the past 12 months to really nail what’s needed for this type of combat,” Lafuente explains. “We’re very proud of the progress we’ve made, and our latest tests have shown that players are saying the gameplay feels natural. I’ve even found myself wondering if I should make the switch to playing Throne and Liberty from the couch on a controller from now on.”
With NCSoft’s pedigree at the helm, and a wealth of unique ideas to bring to the genre space, Throne and Liberty is in a fantastic position to showcase how to bring a proper MMORPG to the console space. If their vision proves successful, it has the potential to be game changing.
Look for Throne and Liberty to launch September 17, 2024, for Xbox Series X|S. The next open beta event for Throne and Liberty on Xbox Series X|S will take place July 18 to 23, 2024. Visit the official site here for more details and stay tuned to their social channels for additional information.
The post How Throne and Liberty is Becoming the Console MMORPG for Everybody appeared first on Xbox Wire.
We are officially in summer, with the summer solstice having passed just yesterday. Happy Midsommar to all who celebrate. May your sacrifices protect you and bring a bountiful harvest once more.
I was a bit surprised that the Steam Summer Sale did not kick off yesterday. Steam has a pretty solid track record of landing summer and winter sales on the first day of each season. But this year it won’t start until the 27th. [Addendum: Though if I had looked back to 2023, I would have seen it didn’t start until the 29th, so just another issue in my brain.]
So no post about that today, as I had sort of planned. Instead, some things are launching or announcing dates for launch. Time for a pass through that I guess!
Tarisland goes live today, doesn’t it? Technically it is going live world-wide and will have launched everywhere on the list by the time this post gets published. At 11am eastern time it was supposed to go live here in North America, the last of its launch regions after Asia, Europe, and South America.
Now here and Free to Play
Derided repeatedly as a WoW-clone in a world where it is tough to be an MMORPG without that comparison, it is available on PC, Android, and iOS as a free to play title.
I have said several times that I wanted to give it a try, if only to see if all this WoW-clone talk had any merit. But I have I downloaded it yet? I have not. Maybe it will strike my fancy this weekend.
Anyway, there is a launch announcement with details on how to join in on your platform of choice. They have even partnered with an emulator to try and make the game playable on MacOS. You need an M-series Mac, no Intel models need apply, and there are hoops to jump through, but you could make it happen if you were dying to play.
Finally, looking at that logo, is it Tasisland or Taris Land?
Meh, I’m not going to worry about it.
Amazon Games, fresh off their good times trying to pretend New World isn’t an MMORPG, has announced the launch date for their next venture, Throne & Liberty, which promises to bring online RPG gameplay into a new era.
Throne and Liberty and totally not an MMORPG
Also it is multiplayer. And a lot of people will be able to play together. I mean, they literally use the word “massive” later on in the text to describe the PvP and PvPvE experience. It is almost like it is… I don’t know, another MMORPG?
Amazon, why won’t you say that? They have literally banished the term from their web site. They make zero MMORPGs if you believe what they say.
Anyway, a title that I nearly put on the “won’t ship in 2024” list for my new year’s predictions… seriously, it was on there, then I realized I had one too many for the point count, so I removed it, will in fact ship in 2024, landing on September 17th.
So I dodged that bullet. That and the whole refusal by Amazon to use the term “MMORPG” are the key takeaways from this bullet point.
Valheim has apparently hit the level of success where somebody felt they needed to make a board game out of the experience.
Please Odin… now in physical form
This will be a crowdfunding campaign and run by another company, which is probably good because Iron Gate has like three devs and they still have a biome to finish some time this decade. The campaign will be run on Game Found, an off-brand Kickstarter clone for board games which you can find here.
There is a teaser video, but I am not going to bother to embed it because it is 17 seconds and tells you less than I’ve already written. If you are interested you’ll have to go sign up at Game Found to get alerts as to when the campaign will go live… as they haven’t bothered to tell us yet.
The next stage of the Equinox expansion hit yesterday, which included the launch of the Paragon store in game, which allows you to take those rather pricey SKINs you can make with the new SKINR utility and list them on the market.
Want to buy a lime green Harpy SKIN?
And, of course, it is a mess. The store front is there and you can do some sorting, but as an online shopping experience it rates ahead of the Pokemon Go in-game cosmetic store, but only just barely, and Niantic at least has the poor excuse of having to work within phone sized devices.
Anyway, you can find it in game… not easily, but you’ll get there if you persist… and read the CCP optimistic take on it here. Or you can go over to r/eve and see what players think. It isn’t pretty.
CCP’s decades spanning desire to make a successful first person shooter game despite all the signs indicating it is a bad idea carries on with a new round of EVE Vanguard testing which starts… wait, it started yesterday, didn’t it? Yes.
The Solstice is here… which means it will just get darker from now on
The play test… because it is still in alpha so all two dozen fans will get angry and remind you of this should you criticize any aspect of it… features a second map, weapon SKINs, and… um… well, there is still just one gun, but you can now change its stats with chip sets you can find in game.
The play test runs to July 1st, so there is plenty of time to join in. You’ll need to download it in the EVE Online launcher because CCP is determined to handcuff this potential corpse to its one viable game. And, of course, they are offering SKINs to people who join in… which feels kind of odd now that they have blown up the SKIN market with SKINR, but whatever. That is the bribe they have to offer.
You can read more about it here.
Finally, over at Blizzard they are cranking out yet another Hearthstone expansion. It isn’t exactly a “month with a vowel in it” level of phenomena, but they do seem to get two or three out every year.
Maybe the WoW team could learn something from them.
Or maybe not, as Hearthstone goes where it pleases with the lore, with the new expansion being called Perils in Paradise, featuring a lot of perhaps unlikely Azeroth activities on the splash screen.
Perils in paradise
Anyway, among the features of the expansion are tourist cards that act as a conduit to bring in cards unrelated to your class in order to spice up your deck. Blizz is also introducing catch-up packs, which I think was mentioned back at BlizzCon where I made some joke about ketchup packs… wait, here is the joke… was it worth it?
How this helps you with deck building I don’t know…
Anyway, those are here now. The whole thing launches on July 23rd and you can read more about it here.
That is what I’ve got for Friday. Did I miss anything?
Na Summer Game Festu oznámila New World: Aeternum, což je v podstatě zcela nové akční RPG, které bude obsahovat veškerý obsah základní hry, její rozšíření Rise of the Angry Earth a další aktualizace a řadu nového obsahu. Po svém říjnovém vydání zcela nahradí původní New World a poprvé přinese tuto IP i na konzole.
New World: Aeternum přinese spoustu nového obsahu i pro stávající hráče. Ten bude mimo jiné zahrnovat rozsáhlou PvP arénu, nový a náročný raid pro 10 hráčů, sólové endgame zkoušky, nové archetypy pro vaše postavy, přepracovaný systém dialogů a nové mechaniky postupu.
„Nový svět: Aeternum je vyvrcholením dlouholetého soustředěného vývoje v kombinaci s příspěvky oddané komunity hráčů, kteří si již proklestili cestu v původním New Worldu na PC,“ řekl viceprezident Amazon Games Christoph Hartmann. „Naslouchání zpětné vazbě hráčů je pro nás základem při tvorbě her a víme, že New World: Aeternum splňuje slib svěžího a přesvědčivého zážitku z Nového světa, který si hráči mohou užít společně na všech platformách.“
New World: Aeternum vyjde 15. října pro PS5, Xbox Series X/S a PC.
Článek Oznámeno New World: Aeternum, které vyjde pro PC a konzole letos v říjnu se nejdříve objevil na GAME PRESS.
Amazon Games is publishing a new narrative-led, open-world racing game from former Forza Horizon developers.
Developer Maverick Games is based in the UK and was founded in 2022 by key members of the Forza Horizon development team at Playground Games.
Its first AAA game is set for release on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC, with lead writing from Skins co-creator Jamie Brittain (yes, that E4 teen drama show).
„Jsem nadšený, že se mohu připojit ke studiu Amazon Games v době, kdy tým aktivně buduje napříč vzrušujícím plánem,“ uvedl Pana v oznámení studia. „V minulosti jsem vybudoval a vedl vynikající týmy a vím, že tato oblast Evropy je horkým místem pro ty nejlepší herní talenty.“
Studio zatím neoznámilo žádný významný titul a v současné době rozšiřuje svůj vývojářský tým. Mezitím viceprezident Amazon Games Christoph Hartmann pochválil tento region a Bukurešť za to, že se zde nachází talentovaní vývojáři her.
„Amazon Games se zaměřuje na vývoj a vydávání skvělých her a máme před sebou ambiciózní dlouhodobý plán,“ řekl Hartmann. „Rozšíření našich interních vývojářských týmů do Evropy pro nás bylo přirozeným dalším krokem při řešení našeho širokého portfolia. Bukurešť je známá jako jedno z nejlepších rozvíjejících se evropských měst pro vývoj her a my se těšíme, že využijeme bohatou zásobu talentů.“
Amazon Games v současné době stále pracuje na svém vlastním titulu, MMORPG New World, který dostal poměrně dost nového obsahu v podobě rozšíření Rise of the Angry Earth, které vyšlo již v říjnu.
Společnost pracuje i na dalších projektech a již v roce 2022 oznámila, že bude vydávat další hru Tomb Raider, kterou v současné době vyvíjí společnost Crystal Dynamics. Žádné nové podrobnosti o hře zatím nebyly oznámeny.
Článek Amazon Games Bukurešť je nejnovějším studiem technologického gigantu pro vývoj her se nejdříve objevil na GAME PRESS.
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