Red 5 Studios has finally revealed what they have been working on:  Firefall.  It’s a “ team-based action shooter combining deep character progression with an open-world cooperative campaign that can be shared with hundreds of other players.” That really doesn’t say much though in today’s industry. That’s why I’m very pleased that they have provided a significant amount of gameplay in a trailer comprised entirely of actual contiguous in-game footage (there’s also a cg trailer if that’s your thing).

The first few minutes almost had me closing my browser out of boredom. It appeared so generic that it could have been any game like Halo. I kept watching and then the part where they took off in the flying vehicle piqued my interest. It showed a lush world inhabited by creatures with lots of room to move around. They flew over a couple of outposts and landed in a city and then the realization of what they’re trying to accomplish with the game set in, even before I read the FAQ.

It appears to be a Borderlands meets ‘what Global Agenda should have been’. There’s clearly a campaign/story that I’m betting is linear but, according to their FAQ and the general ease of which a game like this can be designed, they can easily make room for a few dynamic gameplay elements.

How they plan to accomodate hundreds of players playing together on a mini-server could go several ways.  It could be Cryptic’s lobby based server method or Guild Wars’ style.  We might see a simple Borderlands method where a game is created and people join.  Through the use of a solid front end platform they could do great things.

There will even be PvP, which is where my impression that we’ll see a tad bit of what I expected from Global Agenda come in.  If they keep the PvP in the open world and do not segregate it with instancing then it might be interesting.  Perhaps allow players to join servers with PvP enabled fully.

HOWEVER

A knife pierced my heart when I read this….

How much will Firefall cost to play?
We are so excited about Firefall that we want to make sure everyone can play it and join their friends in the game. When Firefall releases, it will be available online for download and play for absolutely free.

Will there be a subscription fee?
Absolutely not. We do not feel that a subscription fee best suits the style of game we are creating.

How do you plan to make money?
We plan to offer a marketplace for Firefall that will offer players items to enhance their gaming experience. We are adamantly against selling anything that might compromise the skill-based aspect of the game

*facepalm*

Why? Why not just sell the box? Guild Wars did it. Why this need to be all ‘cool’ and come off like ‘hey our game is free, ohhh yeahhh’.  Good games are worth buying!

Ugh.  I can cross my fingers and hope for a cash shop that won’t impact gameplay or “compromise the skill-based aspect of the game” at all.  Hahahaha… who am I kidding?

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