Zenith is a new MMO developed by the indie studio Ramen for PC and VR. The developers have now shown the first impressions of the gameplay.
What is Zenith? Zenith went live last year on the funding platform Kickstarter and reached its goal in just 4 hours. It is a sandbox MMO game for VR and PC set in a cyberpunk environment.
Zenith is inspired by popular JRPGs like Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger and animes like Laputa, featuring a stylized anime look in the videos:
- Played from the first-person perspective
- No “Holy Trinity”, a character can change its role in combat by equipping different abilities
- An AI for NPCs and enemies, they will be able to dodge, hide, or run away
- Playable on Rift, Vive, Index, WMR, and Quest as well as on a normal desktop PC. So you don’t need a VR headset to play the game.
For development, the cloud technology SpatialOS is used, which aims to ensure that Zenith can have vast continuous areas without loading times.
What does the gameplay look like? The development team Ramen released two new videos for their backers on the Kickstarter page. In one, the first pre-alpha gameplay of Zenith is shown. You can watch the video here:
In the second video, project lead Andy Tsen explained what is shown in the video.
The pre-alpha footage shows a fight in one of the outdoor areas of Zenith. The video highlights some of the core features of the system such as parrying attacks and the “Stagger Meter”. The class shown in the video is called Blade Master.
Even though it doesn’t look fully polished yet, it is a fully functional combat system that has already been tested by “hundreds of players” on a server.
Do they have the money for an MMO project? So far, Zenith has raised $280,075, which is over ten times the originally needed amount of $25,000. All stretch goals set by the team have been achieved.
Additionally, the developers stated that they were also seeking financial help outside of Kickstarter. In a blog post on the Kickstarter page, they wrote:
We have several other investors (including some of the most respected investors in Silicon Valley) and have actually raised more money than through Kickstarter.
The funds from Kickstarter are intended to make the game even better and more polished.
Initial tests are already underway, alpha coming soon
What’s next? As the next step, the team plans to focus on several things:
- At the top of the list is the alpha test
- After the technical hurdles are cleared, the developers want to polish and further develop the various gameplay systems
The team was recently expanded with some new members and now consists of 7 people.
When will testing start? On the Kickstarter page of Zenith, you can find out approximately when the first tests for the MMO will start. Participation in the various alpha and beta tests typically depends on the amount of money you contributed to the project.
- Pre-alpha test already started on March 21 (minimum contribution $79)
- Closed alpha test is expected to start around the end of June (minimum contribution $39)
- Closed beta test will open to players by the end of the year (minimum contribution $29)
It remains to be seen how Zenith will look later in the development. With Chronicles of Elyria, another Kickstarter project, there was significant trouble regarding funding.
