As reported earlier, Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen is going to be having a pre-alpha 5 “shakeout” test next weekend between September 5th and 6th, but before that, the devs at Visionary Realms wanted to offer a look at just what testers will be getting in to.
The shakeout region will be a greyboxed version of Thronefast, meaning that much of the terrain features are going to be extremely simplistic in design but will still give players a general idea of where the final design of Thronefast will look like.
The video also shows off some starter level combat, offers a look at climbing on surfaces, and discusses a bit about how the devs are approaching onboarding new players and their efforts to avoid handholding and instead focus on orienting new arrivals. It also demonstrates how questing will work, with NPCs generally offering suggestions of where to go when asked but ultimately not offering highlighted waypoints on a minimap, as well as discusses how NPC behavior and their reactions to players based on things like class choice can affect gameplay.
For those who have backed the game at the right level, this preview will likely be most interesting, but it also grants everyone else not willing to shell out $1,000 another taste of where Pantheon is going and the kind of MMO being built. Whichever column you fall in to, the video is after the break.
