Late last night, Playable Worlds dropped a new trailer for Raph Koster’s incoming MMORPG sandbox Stars Reach, along with an update for its NDA.
As readers will recall, there was a lot of consternation over the game’s visuals this past summer when the game was first announced; the team maintained all along that the graphics weren’t final and were still undergoing heavy work. That work is evident in this new trailer, as the camera swoops through much more detailed skyboxes, desert terrain, snowscapes, and underground caverns. We also spy everything from harvestables and terrain modification to jet packs and climbing.
Apart from the graphics upgrades, the most interesting part of the video is the slide that appears to reveal at least some of the game’s professions, a list we have only been able to guess at before now: Chef, Architect, Geneticist, Skirmisher, Farmer, Botanist, Medic, Defenders, Logistician, Tactician, Merchant, Weaponsmith, Herbalist, Xenobiologist, Civil Engineer, Berserker, Survivalist, Tailor, Criminal, Combat Engineer, Armorer, Assassin, Cartographer, Animal Trainer, Miner, Politician, and Ranger are all listed. We assume this is an incomplete list as it’s missing a few skill types Playable Worlds has already discussed (like entertaining), but it will still get Star Wars Galaxies vets excited.
As for the NDA, it kinda looks like the team is codifying the unspoken rules that players were already living by, as we’ve already been getting a steady stream of screenshots and blog posts from testing. “[W]e’re updating our NDA as of November 7, 2024, to allow players to share recorded videos, screenshots, and written impressions of the game,” Koster says. “While livestreaming remains restricted until later stages, we encourage players to document their experiences.”
Last week, Unity released the full talk between Koster and a top AWS engineer; we’re tucking that, plus the new trailer, down below.
