We get a first look at EA's upcoming RPG epic

As was recently pointed out to us, breaking into the RPG market isn’t exactly the easiest thing to do in the world. Between the Japanese market, the masters at Bioware, Bethesda, and all of the other heavy weights, the only way to make things harder for yourself would be to somehow try and take on Call of Duty at the same time. But Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning wants to try anyway, and the team behind it believe they’ve found a way.
 

Apparently, this thing is what brings you back to life

Conceptually speaking, Reckoning sounds very intruiging. It’s the first major AAA outing from BigHugeGames, who’ve previously only worked on the strategy series’ Rise of Nations and Catan, in collaboration with their new owners 38 Studios, which was founded by an ex Major League Baseball pitcher. Throw in acclaimed author R. A. Salvatore, Spawn creator Todd McFarlane, and then Ken Rolston (the lead designer on Morrowind and Oblivion) and you have yourself a fairly interesting set-up.

The official definition of Reckoning is an open-world action-rpg (although semi-open world would probably be more appropriate, as we'll go into later) and it’s the ‘action’ part that the developers are going to be focusing on in order to muscle their way onto the scene. Rolston believes that no RPG has ever quite mastered meaningful and fun combat (with the exception of Fable, perhaps), and it’s here that the team want to focus most of their efforts.

Twitch-based covers most of it, with attacks doing different things depending on timing, but the developers have said that strategy is involved as well, along with some QTE’s like in the God of War. Again, Fable comes to mind as well, and along with the different weapons and skills you can acquire, the combat is more engaging than your average RPG. It looks enjoyable, and we were demoed a number of different set-ups - from a Mage, to a normal warrior, to a Rogue-like character, and each one fought in a fairly unique fashion.



As mentioned before, even though it’s described as an ‘open world’ game, from what we’ve seen so far it’s a more crafted experience than the label implies. There will be a high degree of flexibility we imagine, but the devs themselves have admitted they want to make sure the action and important gameplay spots are highlighted, so expect some linear elements.
 

You get rewarded for taking the path less trodden, although those paths are clearly 'sign-posted' as it were...

What RPG, even an action RPG, would be complete without character customization? Players have a choice between four races (two human, and two eleven, apparently), and along with the usual facial customization, you can even choose your own patron God, which gives its own bonuses. That’s it from the front-end, the rest - such as your character’s ‘class’ naturally evolves as the game progresses, so there’s no set archetypes. This actually ties in somewhat with the game’s lore and story - as someone who starts the game dead, you lack a set ‘destiny’ that everyone else has. As such, depending on which of the three skill trees you spend your points, you can create any combination of ‘destiny’ (read: class) to a highly personalised character.

Considering the game engine being used was last seen in the likes of Catan and Rise of Nations, it's rather impressive to see how the company's proprietary 'BigHugeEngine' has come a long. They hope to dazzle us with a wide range of high-quality locations and assets, and we're told there's a lot of visual content in the game that helps bring it to life and to create a world that'll make you want to protect it. Big words, and whilst it certainly looks impressive, what we've seen isn't necessarily striking in any particular way - but with plenty of time to go, perhaps that will be improved.

Make no mistake though, this is going to be a content filled game. Along with the main quest, there’s supposed to be side-quests, as well as separate faction quests. Players can also engage in crafting, such as alchemy, smiting and sage-crafting and we wouldn’t be surprised if there’s other meta and mini games tucked in there somewhere as well (and that’s not forgetting Achievements, Trophies etc...). Prepare yourself for many an hour of travelling, collecting and grinding... although from what we've seen of the combat system, it should be entertaining at least.
 

Even combat with larger enemies has been aniimated so it at least seems more realistic...

But It’s hard to get excited about a game from a twenty minute demonstration and an (albeit amusing) interview. Whether it’s the twitch combat, the art style, the latest in a long line of mute heroes... you could easily say you’ve seen it all before somewhere. Still, a lot of resources are being thrown at this project, and you can tell a lot of passion is going into this as well, so as more is seen of the game, we're confident more of its unique flavour will emerge. The game is already pretty far along in terms of development and it shouldn’t be too much longer before we start getting hands-on. Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is due out in Q1 2012 for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC.

Most Anticipated Feature: With an acclaimed author in the driver's seat, the story should prove very interesting indeed. It’s not every game you start off dead, you know.