Huxley is one of those games that many people would be surprised to hear wasn't canceled. Since the game's announcement, it has seemed like there was not much info around. Maybe a screenshot or two here; a brief interview with the developers there. The game seemed to promise too much to be able to deliver.
But Huxley has finally, just about arrived -- it is in a beta right now, in Korea. While many Korean-made MMORPGs have not been exactly big hits in North America, Huxley isn't a standard grind-happy Korean MMORPG. In fact it isn't much of an RPG at all. It is a MMO-FPS-RPG. From what I've seen, it is very much a MMO, but about 75% FPS, and 25% RPG.
The game uses modified version of the Unreal Engine. The Unreal Engine runs quite well -- so even though you can be in battles as large as 100 people on 100 people, the game still seems to run pretty smoothly. That Unreal DNA is definitely there -- the game looks and feels a lot like Unreal Tournament 3.
While more twitch-based than stat-based than other MMORPGFPS hybrids, like Face of Mankind: Rebirth, in Huxley low-level characters should actually have a chance at taking down high-level characters. You can get experience points and gain levels, gain perks and abilities, and modify and craft your gear on later levels, but the game appears to play very much like a non-tactical FPS.
Vehicles are in the game, and weapons fall into the following seven categories: machine guns, shotguns, sniper rifles, optical rifles, rocket launchers, Inquisitors (guided rockets) and Regulators. It looks like player housing will be in the game as well.
PvP and RvR combat is big in Huxley, but it also features PvE and quests and stuff like that as well.
Not much info on the plot has been released. It seems to center around a conflict between two evolutionary divergent groups of humans. This is mirrored in-game by being able to choose one of four 'classes': Sapien (a 'One' or 'Syn') or an Alternative (either an Alternix or an Alteraver.)
With a name like Huxley, many people have suggested that themes have been stolen (sorry, inspired) from the work of the Huxley -- notable writer, social scientist and psychedelics researcher Aldous Huxley, most famous author of Brave New World and The Island -- but the links between Huxley's fiction and Huxley the game seem weak enough that Webzen shouldn't be too embarrassed with not crediting Aldous Huxley at all in any of their possible thievery.
Here are two videos from the beta. The first is the opening movie and tutorial for when you first start the game. The second video shows 12 minutes of random gameplay clips. Being able to read Korean will help you out. If you can't speak Korean -- oh well. It's a game, you'll be able to figure out whats going on!
Keep in mind that both quality and framerates are lost in the recording of these videos -- from all reports I've read, this game looks just as crisp and smooth as Unreal Tournament 3 (or games based on that engine, such as Gears of War.)
No official release date has been set for North America. The game seems very far along its development cycle but probably the localization and translation of the game into English will still take another decent chunk of time. I'd guess that a North American beta of the PC version would start at the earliest in November, and more likely sometime around early March of '09.
Online Videos by Veoh.com
Huxley : 12 minutes de gameplay
Uploaded by nofrag
