Irth Online: Our E3 2005 Preview

Tucked into the Kentia Hall, we found Irth Online. This game, along with Dark & Light, aims to create a large world, and no instanced content, which flies in the face of most other games in development. Due to launch in July and be available via digital download, Magic Hat Software will face some stiff competition, but luckily launch generally alone for a good few months on either side.

Visually, the game is adequate for a small company making their first MMORPG. It is not stunning, but nor is it appalling to the senses. Fans of Wish will be quickly familiar with many of the creatures, playable races and structures they find in this world as the team purchased many art assets from that cancelled title. The game features a nice 10 km view distance, and absolutely enormous world, which they claimed was 38,000 km2, a number I triple checked with the team. The game has no zones, a sharded approach, no instancing, but unlike its main rival Dark & Light does feature underground areas.

Their world has five civilizations, four of which are at war and the fifth being neutral. The fifth is for those who do not enjoy PvP and is a safe zone. The other four will kill players of opposing forces on sight and are in constant battle. Unlike Dark Age of Camelot though, the various factions are not physically segregated and only allowed to meet in the middle. The team is quite proud of the way they will mix PvP and PvE into one server, rather than artificially segregating them.