Monday, January 26, 2009

Gatheryn - First to Use HeroEngine

A long while back, I followed the progress of an mmo in the works called Hero's Journey. What set this one apart at the time was that Simutronics, the company behind it, was also developing their own engine for it. So rather than being stuck within the confines of someone else's engine, they were building their own to make the game their way.

They started showing off their engine at tradeshows and even won some awards for it. Other companies started showing an interest in licensing it and Hero's Journey got put on the back burner as Simutronics' focus switched to the engine itself.

I actually forgot all about them until I heard Gatheryn, an mmo I mentioned a few weeks ago, will be the first on the market to use this new engine. Release is scheduled the first half of this year already, which I find pretty surprising. This has piqued my interest even more for Gatheryn. I'm really interested in seeing what sort of new things are in store with this engine.

Other mmo's that will be using this new engine include BioWare's Star Wars: The Old Republic, Colony Studio's Universe Online, and some unnamed mmo planned by Stray Bullet Studios, the company currently running Shadowbane.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

WOOT! I'm so excited about this game since I read bout it in uhm..you know, that magazine. Becketts.
Looks cool, I love mini-games.

beau Turkey

www.spouseaggro.com

Aspendawn said...

It does look pretty cool and I can't wait to try it. Still not sure about the mini games yet. I'm not always good at those things lol. Will have to wait and see.

Tesh said...

Verrry interesting. I've been meaning to dig into the Hero Engine a bit, and Gatheryn looks interesting anyway. This just jumped up in my radar, thanks!

Minigames are interesting; I love Puzzle Pirates, which is largely a suite of minigames, and Wizard 101 has a nice suite of minigames as a health/mana refill engine. They can be done well, like those two did, or they can be lame... here's hoping Gatheryn goes in a good direction. :D