In this week's dev journal, the Earthrise developers lay out a zone known as "The Boneyard," complete with desert-style screenshots.

The Third World War obliterated humankind from the face of the Earth. The creations of human civilization were devoured one by one by the terrible weapons used in the hellish outbreak of uncontrolled strategical strikes. Cities and major industrial areas were wiped out one after the other by nanoswarm weapons, molten in nuclear wrath or pulverized under the hammering forces of the seismic warheads. The surviving population of the planet was scourged by plagues that were spawned by nanomachine clouds acting like nightmarish factories for all kinds of biological horrors. In all respects, the face of the planet was truly cleansed of all things human.

Read about The Boneyard

I have to confess that the more I read about Earthrise, the more intriguing this game world becomes.

Another good read about a feature of Earthrise

The coolest area by now, i really like the atmosphere. Keep the good work up guys, Masthead FTW ;D

This game looks fantastic! Every time I see a new screenshot I am impressed.  I hope the game play is just as good or better.

Heh... these particular screenshots remind me of what the SWG Krayt Dragon Graveyard would look like if someone made SWG2  :) Can you SWG vets imagine what the game would be like with this engine and graphics quality??

Very interesting looking world. I look forward to explore it.

After having beta'ed Fallen Earth, I will say this is now my only hope for a good post-apoc genre MMO for the foreseeable future. I won't be holding my breath though, too many MMO disappointments in the last few years.

This game continues to peak my interest. I love the screenshots.

Looks really nice, a game to follow for sure I think. I also agree that Fallen Earth was a huge let down, this game looks much better from screenshots so far and the story and details are much better done. I hope this one does well.

Originally posted by Longswd

After having beta'ed Fallen Earth, I will say this is now my only hope for a good post-apoc genre MMO for the foreseeable future. I won't be holding my breath though, too many MMO disappointments in the last few years.

 

 

Same here, altho any Sci-Fi sandbox would do it for me ( doesn't have to be post apoc ) :p

And yah, not holding my breath, just relaxing, playing EVE Online or Ryzom while I wait :p

Btw, you should try Ryzom while you wait for Earthrise, they can use the support and it is a nice sandbox game with timeless graphics and an awesome community.

 I like science fiction. But it has to mantain some roots with realism.  Too much "amazing things" and we enter again High Fantasy, and we have more than enough of that.  

So please, make a credible world, one that make sense.  Maybe opt for Hard Sci-Fi to explain things.  Stuff like nanobots are good, but overusing these may make it just strange and not make sense.   

 Wow I am impressed with this. They have been keeping up with releasing new information about new zones for a while now. Kudos Masthead Studios.

Originally posted by Longswd

After having beta'ed Fallen Earth, I will say this is now my only hope for a good post-apoc genre MMO for the foreseeable future. 

Me too. Just on the graphics, which aren't FE's only problem, people excuse them because it's post-apocalypse. But just look at the detail in the rock in this ER imasge and compare it to the crappy, dull FE texturing. It doesn't matter what the subject matter is, it doesn't excuse bad texturing and art style.

Looks incredibly good.

Now who do I have to bribe for a beta invite? 

 aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh i've been killing for this game for years

when will it come out already!

These zone screenshots are nice but I am anxious to have them release a new combat video. The last one wasn’t too well-received and they commented repeatedly that they were listening and making significant improvements to their combat system. It doesn’t have to be perfect but I really want to see how it’s coming along.

Originally posted by raykor

These zone screenshots are nice but I am anxious to have them release a new combat video. The last one wasn’t too well-received and they commented repeatedly that they were listening and making significant improvements to their combat system. It doesn’t have to be perfect but I really want to see how it’s coming along.

The last vid was misunderstood in every way possible, as it wasn't a combat-video. It was a targeting-video to show the soft-lock-mechanics. It was even named "targeting-video".

Masthead learned from this incident very well, and they won't release any videos until they get a broad feedback from the beta--tests first.

(@above poster The word is "pique" my interest, not peak.)

I like the graphics, hopefully dx11, we seriously need to move pc games out of the dx9 doldrums they have been in.

Yours in DX11 Plasma,

Star*Dagger

Graphics are DX9-compatible.

Minimum Requirements: 2 GHz CPU, 1024 MB RAM and 256 MB VRAM video card supporting shader model v3.0

DX9 is the much smarter option. Making a game easy to access is one of the key factors in drawing people in. Think of Wow's huge success and its graphics that can run on old graphing calculator.

I generally dislike it when games try to be too 'innovative' with the flora and fauna in the gameworld.

I've seen a lot of games come out whose idea of a genetic-mutant-creature-thing just looks ludicrous. I often think designers go with the whole 'lets make a gameworld from scratch' approach so they don't have to try and animated real creatures and risk failing badly. If you conjure-up some crazy new animal and it walks like a retard, you can say "well, its meant to walk like that".

A bit of a turn-off for me tbh, especially having seen the crocodile-thing.

I'm not saying anything for or against this game because I haven't tried it or read too much about the details on how the game is played.

But a boneyard is a fairly cliche area in a sci fi or post apocalyptic story, I just wish all the games out there wouldn't be so cliche. All of the fantasy games have the same classes many of the same races and the same style sword of ultimate doom type of weapons. Would be a shame to see sci-fi and post-apocalyptic games fall into their own repeating cliches.

Good thing this isn't a fantasy game, and there are no classes and there is only 1 playable race - Human.

Yes a "boneyard" type of environment is typical to post-apocalyptic. The world typically gets devestated and weathers over time after an apocalypse which is why you say that type of environment usually. However, Earthrise is a little different.

This games setting is post-post-apocalytpic, when people are trying to rebuild. The fact that there are so many different and varying environments and lore to go with them is neat. Parts of the world in Earthrise are "cliche" to the post-apocalytpic setting - destroyed hollowed towns in ruins, wasteland area, etc... But many of them are unique and intriguing and vastly different from what you would expect in this setting. Since it is set several hundred years after the apocalypse, when the world and mankind is trying to rebuild itself you will see a lot more in Earthrise than wastelands.

Click on features and you will see that the last 4 Dev journals are all on very different and interesting (to me) types of environments and this is only a portion of what's in game based on other screenshots or previous mentions.

My favorite zone to date. The screens look amazing...I really want to explore this area!

love the story. hopefully better graphics than fallen earth