GAMENER PREVIEW DARK MESSIAH game preview
Dark messiah of Holy fireballs! First look at the upcoming fantasy shooter’s wild multiplayer mayhem
DARK MESSIAH, ARKANE STUDIOS’ IN-YOUR-OWN-EYES TAKE ON
Might and Magic, is more than the real-time strategy series writ singleplayer FPS; its LAN/online modes are more than just fantasyland maps loosely repurposed for the multiplayer mob. “What we don’t want to be,” says producer Romain de Waubert de Genlis, “is a poorly executed brilliant idea.” Instead, the onetime Battlefi eld 1942 lead designer wants his work here to last in the long term, as his previous game has. His and Arkane’s challenge: to innovate
beyond the dying bastion of by-the-numbers deathmatching while integrating gameplay form-fi t to the genre with a magic-making campaign mode and swords-and-sorcery combat.
click to full view
LEVELING ON THE PLAYING FIELD
Human or undead, characters of Messiah’s two factions come in fi ve more-or-less self-explanatory fl avors—warrior, assassin, archer, mage, and priest—and each can scale his or her own branching skill tree over the course of a crusade. According to de Waubert de Genlis, “individual classes offer a dozen or so skills, and some are upgradeable. Take an assassin,
for example: Early on, he’s able to become invisible and backstab enemies; later, he learns to disguise himself, set traps, move silently, poison victims, and feign death. It’s a natural evolution. Then, you must keep in mind that we conceive skills and classes with a classic rock-paper-scissors approach, so that no matter how strong you are in your specialty, you’re
always stronger when working with your team. Some one ability or class can always overcome or outsmart the other.”
MIGHT AND MAGIC
Arkane would rather Messiah’s multiplayer content create new conventions unique to its swords-spells-and-shadows slant than simply appropriate aspects of existing sci-fi and military shooters. In other words, if arrows stand in for guns and healing spells serve as health packs (which they do), the game needs something more—or the difference is only skin deep. Says de Waubert de Genlis: “We face a few specifi c constraints that tie into the nature of the project. First off, melee combat is more prevalent in Dark Messiah than in any other shooter to date, and that means that we’ve had to imagine the system from the ground up and then adapt the game’s balance accordingly.”
That constraint alone creates several consequences. How, for instance, would Arkane evenly match long-shooting archers against melee-only warriors? This is a challenge met by creating the Charge skill and supplying the latter class with more stamina to pursue fl eeing players. Then, to mitigate these new advantages, Arkane introduced the priestess-based Slow spell that allows wand-wavers to hobble sprinting opponents.
To underscore Messiah’s Tolkien-rooted family tree, Arkane is looking not so much to shooters but to fantasy gaming’s traditional stomping grounds: namely, level-based roleplaying. Hence Crusade mode’s fi ve-chapter campaigns on as many maps. So where Battlefi eld 1942’s now-typical control-point system brands Messiah’s action, it’s World of WarCraft’s PVP battlegrounds and honor system that inspire its structure. Messiah’s party members apply collected experience points to their characters’ progress over the course of serial encounters, beefi ng up accuracy, stamina, and armor while learning to apply poisons, set traps, amplify spells, and more. In addition, Messiah’s multiplayer uses conceptually evolving maps to suggest narrative without actually inserting story, so to speak. “We convey continuity between maps in two ways,” says de Waubert de Genlis. “First, they dovetail visually. Stand at the far end of
a human map where you’re nearing undead territory, and you’ll see the architecture and environment change. Plus, it’s the outcome of the previous match that determines the next map
that you play on, not the server’s map cycle.”
CHARACTERS OF MESSIAH ’S TWO FACTIONS
COME IN FIVE FLAVORS—WARRIOR,
ASSASSIN, ARCHER, MAGE, AND PRIEST.
FANTASY FRAG
Blocking is possible; parrying, too—Dark Messiah’s hand-to-hand combat options are comprehensive even as they diverge from those that defi ne unplugged play. “The multiplayer
melee system is similar in that it’s played from fi rst-person and it allows you to perform
most of the moves from solo play, such as strong and chained slashes,” says de Waubert de Genlis. “But, because players obviously act and react in ways A.I. won’t—meaning that they move faster and are less inclined to remain in front of you—we had to adapt. So we introduced more options to the mix, connecting most of them to skills, specifi cally the warrior and assassin classes’ aggressive charges.” Conan-cut warriors—Messiah’s most heavily armed and armored character class—lop heads when properly positioned and rely on a stamina-sapping rush to close the gap for their gruesome coups de grâce. Misjudge distances, however, and the warrior not only deals no damage, but also fi nds himself too fatigued to follow up with other life-taking offensives.

Three solutions to countering the schlemiel: Backpedal, stutter-step aside, or lean on abracadabra to slow the louts’ advance. Once the warrior’s bull-rushing, he can’t break off.
The assassins’ blitz, on the other hand, autotriggers when silent-but-deadly sorts slip
behind rattlebrained quarry. “They’ll miss if the target is moving fast,” says de Waubert
de Genlis. “Otherwise, evasion is out of the question, and the rush might deal damage to
multiple opponents.” Solution: Stay mobile and survey your surroundings…especially when
you’re a mage or priest and must stand stockstill when casting certain spells. “In the end,”
de Waubert de Genlis argues, “it adds variety and verve while preserving the unique feeling
of fi ghting in fi rst-person.” In order to deliver, we’ll add, Messiah must give its dagger and
bludgeon blows gravity.
Thwacks—lethal or less-than—should sting in ways the gauzy knife
strikes in existing multiplayer FPSes don’t. Ideally, differently classed allies work in concert—
and are designed to do so. De Waubert de Genlis offers a trio of examples: “First: An undead assassin stalks some humans. A human priestess then spots the assassin, and with her special ability, ‘marks’ him for her team. The once-cloaked assassin is now clearly visible, and the human team receives a bonus for killing him. Now, say that a human archer fi res an arrow that blurs the assassin’s vision, allowing a human warrior to fi nish him off. The archer, priestess, and warrior will then share the multiplied experience points. “Second: Say a warrior’s manipulating a platform.
Since the warrior’s exposed and in need of protection, a mage might decide to cast a sphere to defend his ally against enemy spells. Unfortunately, an undead archer manages to kill the warrior. However, if a human priestess is nearby, she’ll resurrect and heal the warrior. “Final example: Enemy warriors attack three archers and a priestess. The priestess summons
bramble bushes, which slow the attackers, allowing the archers to fi nish them off.”
FRIENDS-LIST FUNCTIONALITY? “WE’RE CURRENTLY EVALUATING MULTIPLE FEATURES AND OPTIONS,” SAYS DE WAUBERT DE GENLIS, “BUT WE PREFER TO NOT COMMENT PRIOR TO HAVING DEFINITIVE ANSWERS.”