Trion Worlds' MMO 'Defiance' Is Looking Promising

Apr 6, 2012 by Anthony Mole

Defiance Gameplay Trailer

There are plenty of experimental games out there, including some interesting takes on the MMO genre as we’re about to see with DUST 514 by CCP Games. The latest title in this category however, is Defiance, an MMO-shooter hybrid developed by Trion Worlds.

Details on the game are sparse at the moment, but so far it sounds rather ambitious. Defiance’s world will be a persistent one, though this time in the realm of a shooter. It sounds almost like Sony’s (and the recently shuttered Zipper Interactive‘s) title MAG, an FPS that featured 256-player games in a world that changed even when one was offline. However, Defiance is said to support thousands of gamers playing together, dwarfing MAG‘s already impressive player count.

Rob Hill, Defiance’s Senior Producer, describes the game as the “first persistent online world that plays like a pixel perfect shooter.” Of course, we’ve seen very little gameplay up until now with this Defiance trailer:

Defiance‘s world also extends past the game, and into a television show of the same name. The show, will air on the Syfy network, and both it and the game will “change and evolve together.” What does this mean? Once again, details are sparse, but we have a few ideas. In terms of post launch DLC, Trion Worlds has a near endless amount of options at their disposal. They can create plenty of content – such as maps or character models – that stem from new plot points, which could even lead to larger changes in the game world, i.e. factions increasing or decreasing in power. This is of course, speculation on our part, but the game certainly has us intrigued. The ideas are potentially limitless, so let’s hope Trion Worlds is able to craft something special and engaging.

Unfortunately, no news has been announced regarding the game’s pricing structure. Will it be free-to-play like DUST 514? Will players pay a flat fee and that’s it? Or will the game follow a more traditional model and charge for a monthly subscription? With the amount of MMOs going free-to-play these days, we’d expect the first option, but then again even a monthly fee can still be profitable.

Based on the premise and what we’ve seen from the gameplay, Defiance looks like it could be a title worth keeping an eye on. Ranters, what do you think? Do we need another MMO?