IGN Expo has brought the exclusive reveal of Starkeepers, a new MMORPG coming to Steam Early Access in 2023.
A cosmic sci-fi game at heart, Starkeepers' central race is a group of anthropomorphic Viking animal-people, including wolves and seals. These unusual heroes are the titular Starkeepers, god-chosen warriors sent to ward off eldritch cosmic threats.
A gameplay teaser showed off the game's low-poly looks, its mixture of action combat and town building, not to mention trap-filled dungeons. The developer promises a vast open world, filled with multiple factions, and the opportunity to fight both beasts and gods along the way.
PvP will revolve around cooperative base building, in which you create 'Starkeeps' filled with traps and turrets – and attempt to take down rivals' creations. Players will be able to form councils to declare war on rivals – or become part of the world's governments, managing clans and banding players together.
Developer Wolfpack Games are a multinational team based in Beijing, Sydney, and Rotterdam, built with a focus on MMOs in mind – and with experience on everything from the Lord of the Rings MMO to Warframe. The studio aims to fix issues in existing MMOs, and wants to create projects "free from unimaginative questing, free from mindless theatrics passing for 'combat', free from game economy in uncontrolled spirals, and definitely free from disruptive over-commercialization."
This was just one of dozens of announcements and trailers revealed during IGN Expo 2022 - make sure to check them all out.
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