EA Unveils Darkspore, Maxis’ Online Action RPG
- By Chris Kohler
- July 20, 2010 |
- 4:23 pm |
- Categories: Console Games
REDWOOD CITY — Will Wright’s out-of-the-box Spore is now the inspiration for a more traditional game experience.
At a media event Tuesday morning, Electronic Arts unveiled the next game from Maxis, and it’s not what you’d expect from the developer of The Sims. Darkspore is an action role-playing game with a gritty science fiction aesthetic, all bleak planets and killer monsters. It’s currently slated to launch in February 2011.
This is not an expansion pack. “Darkspore is its own, fully robust PC action RPG game,” said Maxis GM Lucy Bradshaw.
Darkspore’s campaign can be played alone or with four players online; EA also promises “intense multiplayer battles.” It’s influenced by Spore’s roll-your-own game design, of course — there will be “tens of thousands of collectible body parts and armor” with which to customize your main character.
“Darkspore is a game about loot; it’s about taht drive and motivation to unlock and collect better stuff,” said another Maxis developer.
Electronic Arts says it has moved members of the Mass Effect to the project and recruited folks who’ve worked on Blizzard’s mega-popular action RPG Diablo.
Two of EA’s designers showed a live demo of the game following the announcement. You can build a squad of characters, then select a handful of them to play each level — the ones you think can tackle its challenges best.
Your characters have “squad abilities.” These are important because they are abilities that the other characters in your squad can also use if they’re teamed up with that character. One character has a Haste ability that makes all the characters around him go faster.
Images courtesy Electronic Arts
It looks pretty- and very Diablo/Torchlight kinda deal. Imagine that…EA piecing together pieces of profitable puzzles and repackaging it similar to a super big title that, unfortunately however good/not great it was, still sold huge.[Spore] If Will Wright was not playing robo-patty-cake @ his temple in CA, we might have something more interesting coming from his direction instead.
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