Games Review

Elder Scrolls Online

by
The Elder Scrolls Online

Elder Scrolls Online (ESO) is the highly anticipated MMORPG to the award winning Elder Scrolls series. Developed by ZeniMax Online Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks, Elder Scrolls Online serves as something of a prequel to the previously released, single-player only Elder Scrolls experiences: Skyrim, Oblivion, and Morrowind. The game features a pay-to-play subscription model which requires an initial purchase to download/receive the game and an additional $15 per month subscription for continued play. The payment model has been controversial and rather decisive since its announcement, with many arguing the merits of the game weighted against such a cost. It is widely believed that a transition to a free-to-play model is inevitable (much like the case with Star Wars: The Old Republic), though ZeniMax Online has yet to confirm with any certainty such plans.

The Elder Scrolls Online consists of three major factions, The Aldmeri Dominion, The Daggerfall Covenant and the Ebonheart Pact. Each faction consists of three unique races and has its own unique quest line to follow — the consequence of choosing any one race over the other is minimal and should be chosen purely by player preference. Regardless of faction or race, players must choose between one of four races (Templar, Dragon Knight, Sorcerer, Nightblade) which will determine the character’s skill set.

One emphasized feature of Elder Scrolls Online is the player’s ability to craft the character they want to play as, regardless of any permanent selections made during character creation. Any combination of faction, race or class is free to utilize any armor set, weapon or item, meaning players can play as a heavy tank character, a ranged mage or even switch between different variations at will. This allows players the unique and valuable ability to adapt to scenarios and approach them in the best way they see fit.

Much like previous entries in the series, Elder Scrolls Online features dynamic, action-based combat. Enemies are reactive of player actions and likewise, players must react to a wide variety of enemy actions and cues. A careful combination of offensive and defensive tactics will give players a distinct upper hand against foes.

Apart from an engaging main quest, there is a wealth of other gameplay options for players to immerse themselves in to keep them occupied. Multiple guilds are available to join with the promise of more on the way. Upper level players can choose to enter the thrilling PvP battleground which pits the three factions of Tamriel against each other in an all-out war for the domination and control of Cyrodiil. Or if it’s more main-questing that a player desires, there are always two other factions to which they can create a new character and start anew.

Survive The Nights

by
Survive The Nights

Survive The Nights is an upcoming zombie survival MMO from a2z Interactive. Survive The Nights is a first-person multiplayer shooter with heavy emphasis on community and realistic survival techniques. The game debuted on Kickstarter with an initial funding goal of £12,000 but, thanks to good messaging and a promising premise, managed to smash that number and close out at a total of over £108,000. Stretch goals include the expansion of the development team, additional servers, a professional composer and a PS4 build.

Players will be thrown into Survive The Night’s post-apocalyptic world, filthy with deadly zombies and scarce of many of life’s necessities. In order to stand a chance, you will need to scavenge during the day: finding food, weapons, tools and shelter. Seek out shelter and fortify yourself in at night to protect yourself from the aggressive zombies that thrive in the darkness.

Survive The Nights promises a lot of features, many unique, others refining and enhancing already established tropes of the genre. Take, for example, food consumption. For many survival MMOs, players must consume food and water on a regular basis to avoid death: the player’s state of existence being totally white and black. Survive The Nights takes a more realistic approach and incorporates the diminishing physical condition of a human body lacking food. If a player hasn’t eaten for hours on end, their character starts to become sluggish. Slower movement speeds and a lower equipment load will be indications of a player slowly withering towards death.

Perhaps most importantly, a2z Interactive is attempting to tackle the hostile player community that comes with games of the survival MMO genre. ‘Kill on sight’ is being addressed with an affectable character mental state. Killing other players will lead to a breakdown, of sorts, causing the player to suffer from blurred vision, shaking hands and voices in the head. Take murdering to an inexcusable extent and it will result in automatic player suicide. PvP will remain an important feature of Survive The Night but with these unique features, it should exist as a more enjoyable experience for everyone involved.

Survive The Night promises a world that is immersive beyond what we have seen yet in a survival MMO. Every structure found on the game’s island is enterable, unique and inhabitable. Players are able to store their goods inside their structures, fortify their defenses with planks and furniture and set traps to protect them and their abode against invaders. Generators can be fueled and activated for power through the dark nights and stove tops can be used to cook food with out the use of an attention-attracting fire. Even players who prefer a more mobile lifestyle can repair vehicles and roam the countryside living out of their trunk.

Survive The Nights currently has a targeted release date of August 2015. For more information on Survive The Nights or announcements of an alpha, beta or full release, keep here to MMO ATK.

Heroes of Rune

by
Heroes of Rune

Heroes of Rune (HoR) is an epic new casual game that combines elements of Multiplayer RPG and MOBA style gameplay. Team up with friends for Quests, Raid challenges, engage in fast-paced PvE, PvP combat in a casual Multiplayer RPG environment. Once you are ready for more action, go head to head with other teams in the Rune Wars, MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) Mode!

Rune Wars Arena includes a unique strategic Capture & Defend gameplay with traditional MOBA objective of destroying the opposing team’s primary structure. Unlike other MOBAs, Heroes of Rune will not include lanes or auto-spawning minions. Players have the freedom to roam the environment, hunt various monsters for experience points, collect gold, purchase upgrades, and spawn minions that will follow you directly into combat!

Divine Souls

by
Divine Souls

Divine Souls offers a gameplay experience never seen before. It blends an action RPG and MOBA into one MMO! Everything from the dungeons to the wave defense mode to PvP are all played with the same combo-based direct controls. Plug in a gamepad to enjoy it like any console game – for free!

Choose from one of four individual classes, each with their own specialized weapon and role to play. Delve into dungeons to defeat bosses and progress the story, solo or with a party! Create a guild and engage in PvP against other guilds, and join in on the Battlefield! There are always new and exciting ways to enjoy Divine Souls.

Tribal Wars 2

by
Tribal Wars 2

Tribal Wars 2 is the latest iteration of the ever-popular MMORTS game, Tribal Wars. Tribal Wars 2 takes what InnoGames had ‘innovated’ in the first version of its game, and adds on new features, new buildings, new strategies, and of course, a whole new look and feel to the game.

Tribal Wars 2 is a free online strategy game that is set in a medieval universe. You start the game as a ruler of a castle in a heavily warn-torn part of the world. Your goal is to not only defend your kingdom from the onslaught of enemies, but to be ever-expanding so that you too can become a supreme leader of the land, and forge your name in the history books.

Like many MMORTS games of its kind, Tribal Wars 2 is a battle strategy / castle management game. You will compete directly in your browser in a real-time PvP environment while upgrading your city, building up your troops, making sure your people are happy and willing to die for you, and prove your military might on the battlefield. InnoGames is well-known in this space, with titles behind them including: The West, Grepolis, Forge of Empires, and of course, the original Tribal Wars.

Tribal Wars, the original, began its existance back in 2003. Since then it has reached over 50 million registered users, and allowed the original creators to found InnoGames and its many titles since then. Tribal Wars 2 began its closed beta in June of 2014.

Swordsman Online

by
Swordsman Online

Swordsman Online (also known as just Swordsman) is a free-to-play MMORPG from Perfect World Entertainment. Swordsman Online is based on the popular novel, The Smiling, Proud Wanderer by Louis Cha, with Chinese martial arts being central to the game’s visuals and combat style. The game has seen massive success in the Chinese market for a number of years and is finally being localized for a western audience thanks to efforts from PWE.

Players will take on the role of a wandering warrior whose journey leads him/her on an unexpected adventure to avenge their destroyed village and become a great hero. Player and guild actions will dynamically alter the world, changing the environment according to user decisions. Towns can be saved or demolished, unique NPCs and quests can become available and secrets may reveal themselves, all based on the elaborate branching narrative of player choice.

There are ten different schools of martial arts available in Swordsman Online, of which players will choose one to follow. Combat is heavily action-based and relies less on character stats and more on player skills. Quick reflexes and mastering your character’s movement and abilities will give players a distinct upper hand in both PvE and PvP combat. For more details on all of Swordsman Online’s classes, check out our Swordsman Character Classes Guide.

One unique feature of Swordsman Online is that publisher Perfect World Entertainment chose to preserve the essence and culture of the Chinese version by adding subtitles to the Chinese cutscenes rather than dubbing over with English voice actors. Potentially a polarizing decision, it allows the player to experience the game as it was originally intended.

Swordsman Online saw full release in July of 2014 (Release Date: July 29th) and is, of course, free-to-play for all users.

Rise of Incarnates

by
Rise of Incarnates

Rise of Incarnates is a free to play online fighting MMO from Bandai Namco Games, the same developers who brought us Soul, Tekken and Mobile Suit Gundam. The game was announced in early 2014, and featured at E3 2014 with great success. Rise of Incarnates will be available on Windows PCs.

Set in a world that has just undergone a horrible event called the “cube phenomena”, the remaining survivors on earth live in a state of perpetual fear. However, among the people live humans who draw powers from spirit manifestations of gods, demons and monsters, known as Incarnates. In Rise of Incarnates, you play as these powerful humans, that have the ability to transform into a creature, or summon a being to assist you in battle. So far six characters have been announced, with more to come.

The game will feature 2v2 battleground fights through real-world environments.

Rise of Incarnates will begin its worldwide closed beta beginning on August 8th, 2014, with a release date to follow.

Black Gold Online

by
Black Gold Online

Black Gold Online is a genre-blending, free-to-play MMORPG from developer and publisher Snail Games. Black Gold Online features a deeply-imagined game world on the brink of political collapse between the two dominating factions, the steam-powered Kingdom of Isenhorst and the high-fantasy, magical land of the Erlandir Union. Greed over the rare and increasingly valuable resource, Black Gold, has caused an era of tension and unease, a sentiment which places strain on the already shaky relationship between the land of Montel’s two nations. It is up to you, the player, to choose a side and take up arms to help decide the success, or at very least, the survival of your kind.

Black Gold Online features an expansive world to explore and a diverse population of conflicting interests. Six races are available to choose from (four currently, two coming soon), each with a political and moral alignment. Depending on the race chosen, players will be offered a selection of classes from a total pool of 12. Each class has its own story to tell and a unique path to follow, ranging from the fiery Pyromancer to the technologically inclined Spectromancer.

Whether more in tune with the powers of nature or imaginative creations, players can expect fast-paced action combat in both the game’s PvE and open PvP battles. Dynamic events will play a large part in the living, ever-varied world of Montel, with a staggering possibility of 3,000 unique and random events for players to participate in.

Though each race and class is powerful in their own right, neither side would be of comparable strength without their selection of carriers: Black Gold Online’s version of combat-ready mechs and Warbeasts. Players will take to land and air in heavily armored machines of death or equally thick-skinned fantastical beasts.

It’s an all-out war in the land of Montel and no one is safe from the threat of destruction. Strempunk or fantasy/magic; choose a side and join the fight.

King of Wushu

by
King of Wushu

King of Wushu is a newly announced third person MOBA game from Snail Games. Snail Games is one of China’s biggest developers and King of Wushu will mark their first foray into the MOBA genre. The game be built using the CryEngine 3, will feature 5v5 matches with a traditional formula of defending your base while destroying the enemy teams base. King of Wushu will utilize the third person view and be heavy on combat, much like Snail’s Age of Wushu.

Snail Games has said that King of Wushu will be coming for PC as well as Xbox One, but no timetable has been set at the time of this writing.

You can check out the teaser trailer featuring the game’s six classes and gameplay footage for more information.

Chaos Heroes Online

by
Chaos Heroes Online

Chaos Heroes Online is a brand new free to play MOBA game from Aeria Games. The game is set to debut during the fall of 2014, and will bring with it a host of new features and an extensive list of unique heroes. Like its cousins before it, Chaos Heroes Online is based on the popular MOBA experience that was brought to us with the original Warcraft III mod, DotA.

The game will feature fast paced, fluid battles with quick start matches to keep players in the game. New heroes and map mechanics will bring a unique flavor to the genre, with surprises coming from the opposing teams which make sure that your team works together and adapts to the changes at hand.

Chaos Heroes Online will be free to download and play when it opens its doors later this year. You can sign up for the beta using the Play Now button above!

Boundless (Oort Online)

by
Oort Online

Oort Online is a sandbox MMORPG game in a universe of connected voxel worlds. In the game you can explore the vast universe, build a sprawling empire with your friends, and defend it against your enemies. Oort Online will allow you to explore huge numbers of different worlds, each with different resources, real players, and their creations. Each planet is populated by vicious and varied creatures, known as protectors, which can be killed for experience and loot. Everyone plays in the same universe, you can build anything, anywhere, from portals to palaces, and keep your creations safe, through beacons.

Oort Online is developed using an engine that can procedurally generate almost any world you can think of, which lets them create everything from inhospitable volcano worlds, to lush jungle moons full of weird creatures. Each world functions as a server, which can hold hundreds of players. You will be able to create portals that can allow you to travel to your friends worlds.

For an impressive demonstration of the game’s visuals and day/night cycle, check out our Oort Online World Graphics Time-Lapse video and don’t miss the developer’s Introduction Trailer for even more information.

You can back the project, which has an estimated launch date of late 2015 at Oort Online.

Xeno Quest

by
Xeno Quest

Xeno Quest is a Fantasy MMORPG from NGames designed from the ground in the Unity 3D Engine for iOS and Android mobile platforms. The mobile MMO features real-time, turn-based strategic combat, all rendered in beautiful 3D. In Xeno Quest, players become the hero of a world which thrives on a perfect balance of magic and technology.

Xeno Quest features three unique hero classes — Knight, Mage, Hunter — each with their own styles of fighting. Aside from leveling your character, upgrading your equipment will play a vital role in your success, primarily through improving your weapon’s unique abilities through synthesis options.

The mobile experience will take full advantage of NGames’ ‘semi-open multiplayer link gameplay’ system, ensuring smooth gameplay progression in Xeno Quest’s expansive world seamlessly blended with real-time MMO action. Because of this innovation, players will have access to a variety of PvE and PvP battle modes — a full MMO experience — in the palm of their hands.

Strife

by
Strife

Strife is a free-to-play multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) from S2 Games. Strife is described as a second-generation MOBA game and is S2 Games’ second entry into the genre, following the well-received Heroes of Newerth.

There are currently 20 playable heroes in Strife, each with four abilities that can be unlocked and upgraded via gaining experience throughout a match. Each hero has their own advantages towards varying styles of play, whether it be ranged support, tank or jungler. A well-balanced team and solid team synergy are vital components in a successful match.

Gameplay consists of two teams of heroes on opposite ends of a map attempting to destroy the other team’s base. Players must fight through waves of creeps, multiple generators and enemy heroes to reach the opposing base.

For Strife, S2 Games is modifying many typical features associated with the MOBA genre to reduce both the negativity of the community and the relatively steep learning curve. Complex menus and item systems have been simplified and gold sharing assures players of all skill levels have a fighting chance. While not necessarily specific to Strife, but relatively new for the genre, gold sharing causes gold earned for creep and hero kills to be evenly distributed between everyone involved in the area. This avoids the hostile, inner-team competitions that evolve from counter-productive practices like ‘last hitting’.

For the first time ever in a MOBA, Strife players will be be able to bring pets into the arena! Each pet comes with multiple skins and fights alongside you in battle. At the end of each match, players receive seals which can then be spent toward unlocking new pets. Strife is also introducing the idea of item crafting. Crafting will allow players to modify the effects items have on character stats while still avoiding unfair advantages that can come with such a feature.

Strife is currently in closed beta with a release date yet to be announced. For more information on the free-to-play MOBA, check out our PAX Prime 2013 developer interview, What Is Strife?

Lifeless

by
Lifeless

Lifeless is a multiplayer FPS zombie survival MMO from Rigid-Soft Studios. In Lifeless, players are faced with the grueling task of surviving in a post-apocalyptic zombie world, where resources are scarce but threats are plentiful. It’s a dog-eat-dog world and only the most cunning and cutthroat stand a chance of capitalizing in the aftermath of societal breakdown.

Lifeless promises an on-edge experience where players are constantly on the brink of death. Respawning is not a safety net on which players can rely as permadeath constantly threatens a swift reset to square one. Indeed, a constant state of heightened awareness will be imperative to surviving in a wasteland filled with crazed zombies, NPCs and other human players.

In developing Lifeless, Rigid-Soft Studios understood that to stand apart from the massive selection of zombie survival MMOs (many lackluster, at best) already on the market, they needed to include features not yet seen in the genre. Perhaps the game’s most defining features in that regard are the inclusion of NPCs and questing. Scattered about the world, players can come across various NPC characters. Some will request small tasks be completed while others may be hostile, determined to protect their residence. These are features that serve to keep players engaged and drive unique, exciting and risky narratives.

Also noteworthy is the fortification of structures. With aggressive, intelligent zombies all around and ever hostile players looming about, the importance of a safe place to rest cannot be understated. Players can craft barriers and traps which can be used to enhance defenses on any variety of building featured through out Lifeless’ massive six kilometer world. Your structure will be persistent on that server until another player breaks it down.

Lifeless entered early access on August 25th, 2014. The game is buy-to-play with access purchasable for a one time fee of $25 for Lifeless Standard Edition or $40 for Lifeless Deluxe Edition. Beyond the initial cost, the game is completely free to play with microtransactions available in-game for various materials and weapon skins.

Forge some goods, place some barriers and craft some weapons, you’re in for a deadly experience in Lifeless, the definitive FPS zombie survival MMO. Already playing and need some help? Why not take a peek at our Lifeless Guide To Factions or our Lifeless Crafting Guide.

Adventure Time Battle Party

by
Adventure Time Battle Party

Adventure Time Battle Party is a browser based MOBA game from Cartoon Network. The game is built using the Unity Web Player, so it does not require any additional downloading or micro-client to play, which is great for such a casual type game. The goal of the game, as in every other MOBA game, is to take down the other teams base, while collecting more points than the enemies.

The game is fun, not only for Adventure Time fans, but for fans of the genre, who are looking for something a little less serious, and to mess around with during your free time. It features 15 playable characters from the TV show, including Finn, Jake, Ice King, Princess Bubblegum and more! Each hero has their own unique set of powers and attacks, and players can earns points which can get them different outfits, and different additional weapons.

Demon Crusade

by
Demon Crusade

Demon Crusade is a new F2P Browser Fantasy MMORPG, currently in development by NGames and hosted by Game321. Demon Crusade is a 2D, side-scrolling experience which merges both Eastern and Western culture, creating a devilish adventure to protect the Demon Temple from its imminent destruction. Players can look forward to ancient myths, lost mechanical civilizations, whimsical mounts, smooth combat and more as they quest to become the savior the the underworld.

Users in Demon Crusade will play as one of three classes, either the Warrior, the Mage or the Ranger and will fight along side a powerful partners. Equipment and weapon looting and upgrading will play an important role in deciding success on the battlefield. Those brave enough can even go head-to-head in the PvP Arena, adventure to Sky City, challenge the multiplayer Devil King Instance or even hunt Dream Beasts to find new mounts and collect food to feed them.

In addition to all the exciting gameplay elements in this F2P Browser MMO, players will be able to own their own customizable home, each coming complete with a witch assistant to help. Your personal witch will tend to all your home’s necessities while you’re out adventuring and can be trained to master new house-centric skills!