Who will rise, and who will fall?
The superhero MMORPG market has always been a small niche, especially compared to the juggernaut that is Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft. In fact, until now there has been exactly one superhero MMORPG: City of Heroes. (City of Villains, which some used to consider a separate game, is really just the flipside of the main City of Heroes game.) City of Heroes typically boasts a subscriber base of 100,000 to 150,000 which, although nothing compared to WoW’s 11.5 million, is considered a big success in the MMORPG world.
The days of City of Heroes being the only game in town are about to come to an end. Cryptic Studios (the studio that created City of Heroes and co-owned the franchise before selling its share of the game to publisher NCSoft) is set to release Champions Online on September 1st. Based on the “pen and paper” superhero role-playing game, Champions Online will have an arch-nemesis system as well as power customization, things for which players of City of Heroes have been clamoring for quite some time.
For awhile, it seemed the biggest challenge for Cryptic Studios and their new game was going to be the ability to get the thing out of the door. In addition to a change in publishers (Cryptic was bought by Atari in late 2008), the game has been delayed at least once. It was originally scheduled for release on July 14th, but has now been pushed back to September.
It looks like things are starting to come together for Champions Online, however. The latest “State of the Game” is promising, as is the recent announcement of the extras that players will receive for pre-ordering the game through Gamestop. The “Cryptic engine” has already proven to be successful for City of Heroes, so it will be interesting to see how it plays out in Champions Online, with all of the new game’s enhancements.
Don’t count out City of Heroes, however. For an MMORPG of its age, it still has a healthy fan base. And Paragon Studios (the new name for the branch of NCSoft that now handles the game’s development) has plenty of tricks up its sleeves. The recently released Mission Architect from the game’s Issue 14 update has breathed new life into the franchise, as players can now make their own missions, quest givers, and enemies. Also, a recent hint from the game’s lead developer has given players hope that power customization – the ability to recolor their characters’ powers – is soon to become a reality. A bit further in the future for City of Heroes will be the Going Rogue expansion, a major update to the game that will allow heroes to turn to the dark side and become villains, as well as allowing villains to see the light and redeem themselves.
There will be much excitement in this genre with the upcoming updates to City of Heroes and the release of Champions Online, but that’s not the whole story. DC Universe Online will be released next year, and will allow players to fight alongside their favorite heroes and villains from DC Comics (think Superman, Batman, Lex Luthor, etc.). Like Champions Online, DC Universe Online will be available as a console version as well as a PC version, meaning a potentially bigger audience than for the PC-only City of Heroes.
The superhero MMORPG market will be a lot more interesting within the next few months to a year. Who will rise to the top in this battle of champions? Will the MMORPG market support three non-fantasy games with similar themes? Will the latest technology give the newcomers an automatic edge over five-year-old City of Heroes? Time will tell, but it should be one interesting fight.
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