A year ago, we covered a brand-new MMORPG from Korean dev Nyou called Bellatores, an Unreal Engine title revolving around big-scale progression, PvE, and PvP. In fact, we’d actually first learned about it in 2019 when it was still called Project N1. Along the way, it picked up a combined total of $33M in investor funding, and it was meant to launch in 2022. It didn’t, and when we checked in on it in January of this year, we also noted that Nyou hadn’t said a peep in the west pretty much the whole year.
Well, that’s apparently changing, as renowned MMORPG gaming website, uh, Wccftech – which hastens to remind its readers that “MMORPGs are still big in South Korea” – has an exclusive interview with unnamed reps from Nyou CEO Jung Hwan Kim. The picture emerging through this interview is one of an old-school PvP sandbox MMORPG, albeit with modern graphics. Among the highlights:
- “Basic gameplay includes hunting, gathering, crafting, and an economic system based on these activities, as well as conflicts, wars, and political activities between factions” with a focus on “allowing players to live as if they were really in a fantasy medieval world.”
- Well, not that fantastic: Kim talks up its “realistic medieval atmosphere” with lords, knights, castles, and “grim tales of kingdoms” that make for an “authentic medieval experience.” Also dragons, magic, and diversity. So… authentic fantastic?
- PvP, siege warfare, and pretty much everything else will be set in the open world rather than in instances. It sounds as if there are five factions, battles between which are “the primary focus of the game.” Players will be able to kill folks from the four factions they’re not in with impunity, making this as close as a factional PvP game can get to FFA.
- The devs wanted corpse looting in PvP, though they’re now “considering providing a slight penalty to losing players and allowing winning players to acquire reputation points, which can be exchanged for rewards.”
- Bellatores will come first to PC, with console at some point “in the future.”
- The game is centered on characters built using skills, not classes. “There is no gender lock issue.”
- Combat is tab-target but “will demand quick reactions and strategic decision-making.”
- Yes, there’s a detailed crafting system, aimed at “players who don’t necessarily enjoy combat.”
- Nyou hasn’t decided whether housing will happen or not, but mounts will.
Fans of realistic ecologies might be interested to learn that Nyou is aping Koster’s classic plans for Ultima Online (most notably implemented in games like Wafku):
“We aim to implement a dynamic game world that is responsive to the cumulative actions of the player. This will enable the player to experience the impact of their actions on the game environment and witness its transformation. For instance, repeatedly hunting a particular monster in a specific area will result in a decrease in its population, while the population of other monsters may increase due to the food chain. Consequently, the player’s actions will have a tangible impact on the game world and result in a unique experience for each player, even in the same area at different times.”
Launch is now planned for “the second half of 2024.”
