Eden Rising from Nvizzio is definitely a novel idea. Nvizzio is comprised of many ex-Funcom Montreal folks, and though they’ve done a fair bit of contract work in the past, Eden Rising: Supremacy is their first wholly original offering and it’s based on their own brand new Sci-Fantasy IP. It’s part online RPG, but survival game, part tower defense, and all kinds of awesome looking.
It might help to think of Eden Rising as a “mini-MMO”, but there’s nothing Massively Multiplayer about it. This is a small-group persistent online open world game. You’ll run your own servers, for free within the game, and at Early Access launch in May, you’ll be able to host up to 8 players at a time. Closer to launch, it’ll be 16. Eden Rising is squarely in the co-op gameplay realm, too, not like so many other online survival games that focus on PVP.
Instead, Eden Rising can be played solo, or with a full server, and players must work together to advance the technology, conquer crucibles, and defend them in massive siege events that are triggered by the players on the server. All along the way, you’ll uncover more of the story, the mystery of Eden itself and the reason you’re there. As time goes on, the devs at Nvizzio will add more and more crafting recipes, more content, and more biomes to the world of Eden, as well as more features.
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You can spend your time just crafting, hunting, and exploring, or you can spend your time building defenses around the Crucibles and testing your limits with the sieges. The goal of Eden Rising isn’t to suck your life away with a mindless resource grind, but rather to let players focus on the combat, the tower defense, and the co-op gameplay.
Each player’s server will be different, and you can join games in progress, start a new game whenever want, or keep it really strict and closed to just you and your dearest friends. Progress is “tribe-based”, meaning that you and your friends on the server all share the same amount of progress, based on the work that’s been put into crafting, building, and so forth.
Eden Rising isn’t about building bases either, but rather about building defenses - traps and turrets make up the bulk of your defensive arsenal at Early Access launch, along with all the cool weapons and armor you’ll craft for yourself along the way. Sieges are the key way to progress your technology, and they increase in difficulty each new tier, meaning you’ll have to rethink your strategy, advance your defenses, and prepare all over again before you trigger the next one.
The video we were shown of Eden Rising was pretty impressive, indeed. Lush visuals like a hybrid between Absolver and WildStar, truly alien looking lifeforms and structures, and a massive world filled with loads of places to explore. Combat seemed like fairly standard 3rd-person action stuff, dependent largely upon your weapon and item choices.
Eden Rising: Supremacy hits Steam’s Early Access in early may. Keep an eye out on MMORPG.com for hands on impressions once we’re actually playing the thing.
