Fury: Hands On

Developers have always found it hard to balance a massively multiplayer game so that both the PvE (player versus environment) and PvP (player versus player) elements are fun and satisfying. In most cases, one (or both) of these aspects tend to suffer, leaving large chunks of gamers dissatisfied.

Australian developer Auran looked at this problem, and decided on something radical: they would focus only on PvP, encouraging battles between groups of players through several different game modes. And from what we’ve seen so far, things are looking up for those who prefer fighting other human beings instead of AI creatures.

One of the first things you’ll notice about Fury is that it’s fast. If you’ve played an MMO like World of Warcraft or Guild Wars before, you’ll be familiar with the interface here – it’s almost like the developers simply borrowed many of the conventions that worked and cranked up the speed. Along the bottom of the screen you’ll be able to line up a variety of spells and abilities that correspond to the numbers on your keyboard. The strategy of the game comes from picking the right set of skills to take into battle, as well as effectively using and combining them to wreck havoc on opposing players.

There are certainly no shortage of skills in the game to master – the number currently sits at 400. These are divided into four schools of magic: life, death, growth, and decay, each of which has a corresponding element (water, fire, nature, and air, respectively). Your ability to both specialize in a school, and mix and match amongst them, will determine how well you do on the battlefield.

The game itself is divided into two kinds of areas: Sanctuaries and Warzones. Sanctuaries are your typical safe havens, allowing you to interact with other players and NPCs to acquire new skills and items. The meat of the game takes places in the Warzones, which are divided into four gameplay types: Bloodbath (deathmatch), Elimination (team deathmatch), Vortex (capture the flag), and Fortress (a Battlefield-esque territory mode). If this all sounds like a first person shooter instead of an MMO, you’d be half right – Auran have combined MMO conventions with the game modes of a shooter.

So how does it actually play? While I took a while to really get a hang of things (due more to my own incompetence than any major design flaws), once I got over the learning curve, I actually found it quite addictive. A lot of time has obviously been spent making the combat feel smooth, fast, and pain free. The most fun I had was when I was working in a cohesive team (something that happened a lot more than is usual in an MMO) – it felt highly satisfying taking down the opposition in a coordinated fashion.

While the beta still has a number of rough spots (including a lack of support for my graphics card, which set me back somewhat), the game is shaping up nicely. If Auran can fix a few more things up between now and release, PvP gamers the world over should definitely check this one out come October.