“Everything is true” — or so goes the especially apt tag line for the forthcoming game called “The Secret World.”
Sure, this massively-multiplayer online role-playing game (set to launch in April 2012) is nothing but pure video gaming fiction. But it is setting itself apart from the pack (and generating plenty of buzz to boot) precisely because it is rooted in our very modern reality.
At the Penny Arcade gaming expo taking place in Seattle this weekend, I had a chance to talk with “The Secret World’s” lead content designer Joel Bylos from developer Funcom and he told me that “a huge amount of research” has gone into making this game as realistic as possible.
It’s an interesting choice, especially considering that “The Secret World” will be pitted against that behemoth of a massively-multiplayer online game — “World of Warcraft.” And “WoW” has been an enormous and long-running hit with players (at least in part) because it transports them to a fantasy world extremely different from our own.
But Bylos points out, “The market is flooded with fantasy stuff.” And he believes players want something different.
And so “The Secret World” is set not in some mystical medieval realm, on another planet or in outer space, but on our planet Earth with its familiar look and modern amenities.
Cell phones. Email. This is how the characters communicate. Meanwhile, the game unfolds in real locations like New York, Maine, the UK and South Korea. And Bylos says that, to make sure they got the details right, Funcom sent researchers and artists to many of the actual locations.
“We want these areas to feel like they belong in the real world,” he said.
And even when it comes to the not-so-real stuff found in “The Secret World” — this too is based on real-world research.
The thrust of “The Secret World” is this: gamers choose to play as one of three factions who — when they aren’t fighting each other — are busy fighting a host of monsters. The factions you can choose from: the Illuminati, the Templars and the Dragons.