A game was announced today by dtp entertainment and Signapore-based game studio RealU. It's called Otherland, and it's going to be a cyberpunk themed MMOG based around the Unreal Engine 3.
The game takes place during the late 21st century, and is based on the creations of fantasy and science fiction writer Tad Williams in his four novel Otherland series of books.
"MMO fans can also expect a fascinating gameplay experience. Based on the globally successful novels, the Otherland gameplay is distinguished by a unique narrative structure. Rather than retelling the story, players will experience their own individual stories within the Otherland universe and will encounter many of the familiar characters from the books. The game world will change dynamically around them during the course of the game," said a press release robot.
No word today on any gameplay details -- but it seems from the press release, and the fictional virtual mutiverse setting of the Otherland's novels, and the engine, that perhaps Otherlands will be a bunch of different FPS-sub games linked together via a virtual, social hub, and players will be able to keep a persitient character. Perhaps sort of like Huxley, but with more cyberpunk.
Some screen shots were released today to go with the announcement.
Reading about the game's release announcement celeberation, as related by Tad Wiliams in his Blog, leads me to presume I missed out on a good party:
"Big presentation in a theatre space – Indigo Pearl (publicity)/RealU (game creation)/DTP (the German gaming company who is the mother of it all) showed a video of the making of the game (interviews with the creators – screen shots – game characters in motion going through the environments.) There was a PowerPoint presentation to demonstrate just how rule-breaking the game is.
Then Tad and the journos (le tout Europe, plus USA and Canada) went to the RealU studio for group tours and interviews with Andrew and Kevin, two of the guys heading up the game’s creation. And Tad sat in a restaurant for four hours interviewing with the groups coming by for lunch (which he nevertheless ate only once.) Talk, talk, talk, talk, talk!
Thence, to the harbor and the boat – a long sleek yacht – for a party. Tad was intrigued by the professional hostesses at the party – he mused to me about whether they were an extension of the geisha tradition. They interacted, talked, got things going, and basically were party pros. There was music and a chef, and Tad got into a good ole rock n roll conversation with the French guys, naturellement en Franglais whilst someone hooked up an iPod to the sound system and treated ‘em all to a band named Noir Desire.
Thence, to the hotel. Flagging somewhat. Our jet-lagged Dog was working on something like four hours of sleep at this point, owing to how, the night before, he had been, as he put it, “blagged” into drinking with the Brits (read: nobody parties like the Brits…).
Nevertheless: this night, “beaten and blackmailed” into going out again. After which: many vodka red bulls. See shaky photos of “funky and weird Otherlandish mall” that were taken at some point during this venture.
He finally said no to karaoke at a Thai disco."
Yacht. Thai disco? Drinking Brits? Sounds like fun.
