You might not have heard of Devilian Online, but the action RPG/MMO hybrid is doing pretty solid business in its native South Korea. Now, publisher Trion Worlds is bringing the game to Western audiences, and recently I got a chance to see the game in action.
From the off, it’s pretty hard not to notice that Devilian takes a lot of inspiration from Diablo 3. Though the art style takes most of its cues from Asian mythology and architecture, and lacks the gleeful goriness of Blizzard’s game, there’s a similar softening of the edges, a slightly cartoonish feel. Combat is fast and brutal, with some nice-looking effects for your more brutal powers, like two giant, iron shurikens that slice through enemies like… a giant, iron shuriken through butter.
Without Diablo 3’s loopy physics and buckets of blood Devilian’s hack and slashing looks like it lacks a little weight, but it otherwise seems like a perfectly decent ARPG combat system.
It also brings at least one neat idea to the genre’s rather overstuffed table; the ability to turn into a towering Devil form to tear apart your enemies. Each class has a unique version of the titular ‘Devilian’ that you can transform into, increasing your power and survivability, and unlocking a brand new roster of moves. You’ll even find Devilian-specific gear.
“Both the Devilian and your normal character have separate loot tables,” explains associate producer Andrew Sipotz. “For the most part Devilian gear is rewards from PVP activity, high-end raiding, those kind of activities, while PVE gear is gained through questing, shops in the game world, or drops from dungeons.”
I like the concept, even if I’m not totally sure I’m up for levelling up two MMO characters for the price of one. Sipotz does at least assure me that you can’t hobble yourself by neglecting one form at the expense of the other.
“You definitely want to make sure your Devilian grows alongside your character, that being said you’re never at a point at which you’ve completely messed up. You can always go back and engage some content as your Devilian character, or do some PVP to level that up. There’s also an endless dungeon, which is a great place to gain the experience you need to level.”
As well as two separate skill trees for both your forms, each separated into three specialist branches, you can customise your character in fine detail with Talismans. These are essentially cards you can find in the game-world, or craft yourself. Each character can equip a certain number of these Talismans, and if you like the particular bonus one gives you, you can upgrade it over time to increase the buff. Lots of potential tinkering for the min-maxers out there.
The game world itself is split into multiple overland zones, each divided into several sub-areas. We were shown open plains, frozen lakes, and demon-infested ash wastes. There was no fast travel system on display in the demo we were shown, though I wouldn’t be surprised to find out there’s one in the game in some form or another, so instead the player character was shown exploring the wilds on the back of an armoured polar bear. Which is a lot cooler, to be fair. Fittingly for an MMO, pets and mounts are a prominent tool for adventurers. The polar bear mount in question reduced aggro from patrolling enemies, while later on a pixie-like pet creature hoovered up the player’s loot.
Ultimately, our guide wandered into a high-level zone which turned out to be the lair of a rather grumpy frost troll/giant creature. This was one of the game’s World Bosses, and without a couple of players to back them up, our guide was swiftly splattered all over the floor. Even turning into a giant devil-man didn’t help. To conquer the toughest challenges in the game, you’ll need to find some friends.
If you like playing solo you’ll certainly be able to indulge your passion for clicking on things until they die and then scooping up their treasured possessions, but Devilian also adds those aforementioned MMO features to encourage players to team up rather than go it alone. There’s a fairly robust suite of Guild mechanics, from a levelling system to handing out gifts to your Guildmates (you’ll be able to do this daily, and possible treats include XP buffs, increased money drops and so on), to declaring all-out Guild Wars on your rivals. The latter allows you and your friends to dip your collective toes into the game’s competitive PVP modes.
“The predominant PVP system is those twenty versus twenty arenas,” explains Sipotz, “which are Domination. That’s a capturing control points style play. That’s a really unique and cool system; everyone’s in Devilian mode, and you can capture and spawn NPCs to help you. There’s also three versus three smaller arena, so if you want that more personal, competitive style you can go for that.”
Don’t worry about being ganked by some overlevelled sod on the world map, either. There are specially marked PVP zones, and if you prefer not to mix it up with other players, that’s totally fine according to Sipotz. “PVP is definitely an opt-in system in specific areas. You can go the whole game without playing that type of game-style.”
If you like a slice of socialising with your monster-slaying, then Devilian could provide the MMO-style features you’ve been looking for. The Guild mechanics in particular are likely to appeal to those who enjoyed Diabo 3’s rather lacklustre PVP options, but want something a little more robust. It’s impossible to tell without getting my hands on it whether the ARPG gameplay itself will provide a solid bedrock for those social elements, but from the little I’ve seen it looks fast-paced and enjoyable. One to keep an eye on. You can sign up for the Devilian Beta over on the game’s official website.
Most Anticipated Feature: I think it’s the Guild mechanics that are going to be the big draw here.
