Ready for a new player in the MMORPG genre? Then meet Arctic Theory, a studio composed of former CCP and EA developers who banded together to “reshape the landscape of massively multiplayer gaming.” The studio’s first project is a collaborative MMO called Annex that it hopes to put into your hot little hands by next year, thanks to a $2M seed investment from 2022 and interest from prospective partners.
Annex is a post-apocalyptic sci-fi shared world where players will explore and repurpose relics of a long-gone civilization in an icy biome. Survival game elements are in play here, with scavenging, crafting, and building. Trade routes and puzzle solving will also be essential to the community’s success.
“Players will collaborate with one another to explore and harness the vast landscape and its resources,” said Creative Director Gísli Konráðsson in a press release. “They’ll have to learn to create the tools required to harvest these resources and solve the logistics of transporting and utilizing them. Ultimately, every player contributes to a common goal. Whether a lone prospector in the wilderness or a team working to build a factory in a new settlement, the whole of the player base is working together to make their mark in this incredible world. We’re beyond excited to bring this step in the evolution of the MMO to gamers who love the genre as much as we do. It will be a wholly unique playing experience.”
The studio’s mission, according to its website, is to “create vast, virtual worlds filled with immersive multiplayer experiences where people can shape the universe around them in new and unique ways.”
