We’ve updated the end of this post with new info that’s come to light regarding the game’s origins.
MMORPG fans eager for new frontiers can cast their gaze at Abyss, a newly announced PvP MMO from Old World Labs that’s apparently inspired by Albion Online.
“Abyss is an open-world, sandbox MMORPG where you will be completing immersive quests unique to each player based on your player actions in the world,” the US-based indie studio declares in its announcement today. “Gather resources to craft powerful items and weapons, use your business minds to set up shop to shape the world’s economic landscape, take on other players either in dedicated PvP arenas or as a guild when you clash with others for guild supremacy, and experience epic confrontations between massive Zerg armies as you discover what the world has to offer an adventurer.”
The premise is that the sci-fantasy gameworld is littered with inter-dimensional gates that can send players to “different worlds and eras of time,” so you’re not locked into a specific set of biomes or even time periods. And as for the PvP, it sounds like there are multiple types, including economic PvP, open-world PvP, arena PvP, guild PvP wars, and even zerg vs. zerg PvP battles.
Steam early access for the game is currently slated for April 18th, 2024, though we’ll see if that holds. Old World Labs is currently vending multiple items on the website, including up to a thousand dollars’ worth of game currency, guild name reservations for a hundred bucks, and starter bundles that promise entrance to the early access, which ought to raise more than a few eyebrows for sandbox and competitive PvP fans. There’s probably a joke to be made about throwing money into an abyss here, but even if not, maybe give this one some time to shape up into something fully playable before you pull out your wallets.
Old World Labs’, which claims to have been around for 12 years, doesn’t list any MMOs to its credit, but it does say it “conducted extensive scientific research and development, receiving multiple government grants for [its] work” before beginning work on Abyss in 2020. Its website appears to focus on everything from AI to 3-D printing.
