Arkane's next game. It's not Arx 2. It's Might & Magic. - by Digital Nightfall
butsomuch on 18/8/2005 at 00:49
official fact sheet
(
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/darkmessiahofmightmagic/factsheet_6131332.html)
Quote:
In Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, players will be introduced to the world of Ashan, the new setting for all future Might & Magic games. Ashan is a dark and unforgiving world, scarred by a bloody history and threatened by an apocalyptic prophecy: the Dark Messiah.
Players will embody the young hero Sareth, who has been trained in the arts of magic and war in order to battle the prophetic Dark Messiah. Players will have the choice to become expert warriors, mages or assassins, each with their own cache of devastating weapons and spells to use in battling huge and vicious enemies. Through combat, players will unlock new skills and equipment, advancing Sareth's experience and improving his performance, battle combos, hits, spells and techniques and setting his course for his destiny.
Key Features:
· Cutting-edge technology: Experience an enhanced version of the powerful Source Engine from Valve, including new jaw-dropping environments and incredible special effects. Discover an innovative first-person view with complete body awareness, realistic movements and physics rendering, making it the first fantasy action game featuring a complete first-person combat system.
· Never-ending action: Challenge the forces of evil in 12 immense levels and learn to master over 40 weapons and dozens of devastating spells. Engage the enemy in intense melee combat with swords, bows, staffs and daggers; or summon magic powers against the legions of darkness and sneak in the shadows to stalk depraved creatures. It's all heart-pumping action, where success in combat will dictate your future.
· The Might & Magic universe's darkest side: Explore a secluded region of Ashan populated with fearless orcs, savage goblins, dreadful undeads, elusive trolls, massive dragons and many other creatures that are stunning in both size and depravity. This is a new and darker side of the legendary Might and Magic universe where the forces of evil are stronger and more cunning than ever.
· A deep and engaging fantasy storyline: Raised by a powerful wizard, the young hero Sareth has been trained in art of magic and war in order to fight the prophecy of the Dark Messiah. But the revelations of his past may alter his course and reveal an unforeseen path to the truth and destiny.
· A subtle layer of RPG: By gaining experience through fighting, players will be able to unlock new skills or equipment in order to improve general performance (damage, health, speed, resistance) and to enlarge range of actions during fights: cool combos, lethal critical hits, new spells.
· A revolutionary, addictive multiplayer mode: Enlist with the humans or the undead, and choose among four character classes. Prepare to battle with up to 32 players in several online modes, ranging from simple deathmatch to the revolutionary Evolution mode, which will allow you to gain experience and new equipment across dynamic online campaigns.
butsomuch on 18/8/2005 at 00:56
New short preview at IGN
(
http://pc.ign.com/articles/642/642940p1.html)
Quote:
As in most RPGs, players will be able to pick from a variety of skills and feats to improve as they progress in levels. While most of the talents in the game favor either brawn, sorcery or stealth, and there are definite paths to follow when distributing your skills if you want to be a straight-up fighter, mage or thief, there's nothing that says you can't have a combination of skills and opt for a more well-rounded character who can do a little bit of everything.
Fintilgin on 18/8/2005 at 01:06
Okay, let me make this clear: I liked Arx and I look forward to seeing what Arkane does with this. It does sound a bit like a fantasy Deus Ex. I also really enjoyed the Might and Magic RPGs, although I'm not really a hardcore or extreme fan of them.
But this, oh GOD this made me
cringe:
Quote Posted by PR Dweeb
fans of the Might & Magic franchise be amazed by the direction we have gone with the game...
Yeah, they'll be amazed, but probably not in the way you mean. They'll be amazed you turned their brightly colored, slightly goofy, sci-fi/fantasy, 'turn based', party RPG into a 'OMG EXTREME First-person action game'.
Don't get me wrong, like I said, I like Arkane and I'll be curious to hear more about this game. But why call this Might & Magic? This is not directred toward Dark Messiah specifically, it's just the attitude of some of these big companies towards their 'franchises' drives me nuts. It's like they think the defining charactaristic of a game is just a brand name that they can slap on anything they want. :tsktsk:
Quote Posted by a hidden microphone in a boardroom
Exec 1: Hay guys! We just got the rights to this game called 'King's Quest', it won all sorts of awards and sold a bunch of copies. It's an 'adventure game', whatever that means, with lots of puzzles, talking, and no combat at
all.
Exec 2: Wow, it did well
despite those flaws? Think how many copies we could sell if we made 'King's Quest: Blood Vengeance'! We could make it into a First-Person-Shooter, Real-Time-Strategy, Driving Sim set in the gritty metropolis of Neo-Tokyo! X-Box 360 exclusive, extreme carnage, M-rated all the way. We can totally redefine King's Quest and bring it up to speed for a new generation!
Exec 1: Yeah! New genre! Fans of the King's Quest franchise will be
amazed by the direction we'll take this game!
Okay. I'm done bitching now.
Nedan on 18/8/2005 at 02:03
Shhhh! Shut up man... don't give them any damn ideas. I actually have fond memories of playing the King's Quest series after all.
Spitter on 18/8/2005 at 05:57
Quote Posted by butsomuch
The Might & Magic universe's darkest side: Explore a secluded region of Ashan populated with fearless orcs, savage goblins, dreadful undeads, elusive trolls, massive dragons and many other creatures that are stunning in both size and depravity. This is a new and darker side of the legendary Might and Magic universe where the forces of evil are stronger and more cunning than ever.
Did anyone else think of Godsmack after reading this?
Shadowcat on 18/8/2005 at 10:06
That's a pretty apt assessment I suspect, Flintilgin.
"Prince of Persia: Warrior Within" (also courtesy of Ubisoft) immediately springs to mind as well.
twisty on 18/8/2005 at 13:46
Personally speaking, most of what I've seen and heard about this game so far makes me feel rather optimistic about Arkane's next venture: a loose, flexible character creation system that allows the player to develop his or her avatar whichever way they see fit; Ubisoft's QA track record (just think of BG+E, PoP and XIII) and marketing skills; using existing, proven tech with Valve's Steam engine, which will hopefully allow them to spend more time on tweaking gameplay and maximising content creation. However, with such little public information available at the moment, we probably shouldn't spend too much time speculating on unknown features.
One of the critisisms that I've noticed mentioned by some has focused on the apparent "action" direction of this title. To my mind, Arx Fatalis was more of an action-rpg hybrid than a lot of people want to admit to. What set it apart was the great level of freedom that it offered the player, not just with it's stat-based character creation system but also by providing alternative solutions to quests and rich interactive environments.
Digital Nightfall on 18/8/2005 at 16:13
They gave Arkane a wide range of freedom with what they could create for this game. While they could have just called it Dark Messiah and left it at that, sticking Might and Magic on the front of it will hopefully create -sales- ...
So think of it as Arkane's Dark Messiah if Dark Messiah of Might and Magic is too pretentious. Whatever. It was a huge lucky break for Arkane to be able to make this game, and make it how they wanted, and I for one am happy for them.
Digital Nightfall on 18/8/2005 at 17:09
Oh yeah, and they already did that to Kings Quest. Remember Kings Quest (not) 8? They turned it into a 3rd person action game. It was pretty ass. But that's not what's happening here.
