Defiance, another title from Trion Worlds which has been turning heads since it was announced. One of our main goals was to find out more about this interesting and very ambitious game, so I set out to find their booth and get some hands-on time. Although my time was very short with Defiance, it was long enough to get a basic feel of how the game functions and what we can expect in the future. First of all, this game is set in a persistent online world set just outside San Francisco, and is coming to the PC, Xbox 360 and PS3.
I was a little worried about how this game was going to turn out, the MMOFPS genre is generally tacked on to games that don’t resemble an MMO at all. Luckily, Defiance is an MMOFPS in the true sense, a big seamless world with quests, dungeons, PvP and more. What makes this game much more epic however is the fact that it will be complemented by a TV show on the Syfy channel. Players who accomplish great feats within the game world can change the direction of the show and may even be mentioned by the cast members in conversation.
Jumping into the game, I had the chance to play the Xbox 360 version. Now this is very interesting because Microsoft are generally too strict for most developers, making the platform an unlikely choice for anyone who wants to run their own servers and push updates regularly. The fact this will be going live on Xbox 360 makes me wonder if Microsoft has been put into a position by Sony where they need to loosen up and get with the times. Planetside 2, DUST 514, how many titles before this happened? Let’s hope this is the first of many MMOs to come to Xbox 360.
Upon picking up the controller, I accepted my first quest and found a vehicle close by, a quad bike. The driving mechanics feel nice, and it’s definitely a lot of fun to zip around the map on a vehicle rather than a horse or some mythical creature. I quickly found the area in which my quest was located, I was to fight off a Hellbug invasion and this proved to be very fun. The Hellbugs can burrow and pop out underneath you, causing most players to start stepping backwards and unloading rounds into the ground beneath their feet. A great tactic, but I found that a shotgun was the most effective, especially when shoved in a Hellbug’s face.
The shooting in the game is great, it’s a third-person shooter but players can look down their scope in a first-person view for increased accuracy and damage. Players need to be careful though, the world is a dangerous place and every bullet counts. After playing around with the different weapons and vehicles, I had a chance to talk with a rep from Trion Worlds. He was happy to tell me about how the game will support thousands of players per server and will include things like dungeons, and of course PvP support.
I’m curious to see whether this will be cross-platform, PC players playing against console players etc. I didn’t have a chance to ask, but I highly doubt this will be the case. The game looks gorgeous, and definitely has Trion World’s trademark polish. Overall, I walked away much more excited and impressed by this crazy game, and I think anyone who previously had any doubts should rest easy knowing that this isn’t going to be just another generic online shooter.