FireFall Preview
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At PAX Prime last weekend, Red 5 Studios unveiled their newest game, a title which, according to them, hadn’t been seen by anyone outside of their office until then. Firefall is a massively multiplayer first-person and third-person shooter not expected to see release for about a year. At their booth, Red 5 had beta signups available for PAX attendees as well as live gameplay demonstrations, both of which, I was lucky enough to be in the area for.
Graphically, the game looks great and has an art style that borrows from several sources but maintains a unique feeling in the end. Character models have aspects of Bethesda’s upcoming class-based shooter Brink as well as Gearbox’s Borderlands. The overall style carries over some of the cell-shading seen in games like Borderlands and XIII but infuses it with glowing and organic science fiction elements similar to Starcraft. Even the game’s logo will have you thinking Starcraft from your very first glance. As much as it may seem to be borrowing elements from other games, in its current combination, it is a unique and interesting visual style that stands out as an individual design and one that seems to complement the gameplay well.
Red 5’s representative doing the presentation was quick to drop huge details before continuing on with the gameplay demonstration. One of these details is the fact that the game will feature a fully-realized and traditional MMO-style open world but also a fully cooperative story campaign and competitive multiplayer functionality with several game modes, leaderboards, and tournaments. It’s a lot for Red 5 to put on their plate, but if the campaign and competitive multiplayer portions end up anything like what was shown of the open world, this game could be a huge hit.
In the presentation, one person was playing as an Assault class while the accompanying player was playing a Medic. As of today, these are the only two classes that Red 5 has officially unveiled, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see all the other standards making their way into the game as well. Interestingly for an MMO, classes are not tied directly to the character but rather the gear that you equip on that character. Picking a battleframe gives you your current overall class (medic, assault, etc.) and then from there you can equip different armor and weaponry specific to that class. It seems as if, depending on your progression through the game and the current situation of your faction, switching battleframes and therefore classes is something that will be able to be done quite easily and quite often.
When selecting a mission, you are able to broadcast an invite to all other players in your faction in the current area, giving them the ability join in on the fly. The two main players in the demonstration trekked out to a location riddled with an expensive and powerful new mineral called Crystite. At the location, they were able to call in a piece of mining equipment called a Thumper which falls from space. While the Thumper drills down into the earth and collects Crystite, it attracts all of the enemies in the area. Appropriately, the two players were tasked with defending it. Most of the enemies showcased where Starship-Trooper-style insects of varying sizes, although later on, more humanoid opponents were encountered.
After defending the Thumper and launching it back into space, the players called in a transport ship which landed nearby, got on board, and had it fly them to a nearby city. Without a single load screen making an appearance throughout the entire gameplay demo, the ship flew over vast landscapes on which other players could be seen mining and fighting enemy emplacements. From this point on, it was clear that the game not only looks incredible but portrays itself with an epic sense of scale that definitely stands out from typical MMO visuals.
In town, the players equipped gear that had dropped during the Thumper mission and strolled through several storefronts and a bar before a dynamic open-world mission started in which the primary enemy faction was attempting to take control of the city. If the players do not do an effective job of clearing the enemy from the region, the city can be taken by the enemy and must then be reclaimed at a later point in time by the players.
In an attempt to defend the town as best as possible, the player scaled several rooftops and took control of a huge weapons battery. While pounding down on the enemies making their way into the town from a group of nearby hills, a gigantic creature similar to the insectoid creatures fought earlier in the demonstration scaled a nearby mountain and began to rain down explosives onto the city. At this point, the game cut to the Firefall logo and the demonstration was over.
After the presentation, I got a chance to speak with one of Red 5’s designers briefly and was able to get some details on the pricing which may be the most interesting detail unveiled to date about Firefall. The game is going to be free to play, and by that, I mean entirely free to play. You will be able to go to the Firefall site, make an account, download the game, and start playing without any money changing hands. This, of course, means that microtransactions are a part of the picture, but the designer was quick to mention that Red 5 is creating a skill-based game with Firefall. As such, the microtransactions will reflect this, being able to buy cosmetic and convenience items rather than better armor and weaponry. Firefall is clearly looking to do the MMOFPS genre correctly as well as operate on a microtransaction model that may not actually damage the integrity of the game.
Going into this situation with a clean slate, I was very impressed with what Red 5 is bringing to the table. Like so many games before it, Firefall is looking to fuse the greatest elements of MMORPGs with the greatest elements of class-based shooters. Unlike so many games before it though, Firefall looks like it may actually be able to do it. There are many more details to be unveiled about the game, most importantly the microtransaction elements and what all you’ll be able to access with your hard-earned dollars. We’ll have to wait and watch as the development of Firefall continues, but as far as first impressions go, it certainly made a good one.