Huxley from WebZen E3 Preview

Huxley is a massively multiplayer online first person shooter in the vein of PlanetSide, but the genre is certainly starting to grow up. Placing thousands of players in the same world to duke it out for control of as much territory as they can lay their hands on may not be the most complex form of PVP combat, but, damn, it is fun.

Casual observers at the WebZen booth would first notice a massive battle, shot in-game, unfolding before their eyes. Hundreds of armored soldiers march toward an unknown enemy in formation accompanied by all sorts of vehicles. Scouts speed by on light aircraft and heavy ground vehicles stand by to provide heavy support fire. A female commander declares, "Wipe them out." and all hell breaks lose. Some sort of mutant army bursts forth into a savage rush, taking no notice of casualties. Then come the big guns; a sort of half mechanical, half organic mech wielding massive gatling guns begins tearing into the human lines.

At this point, I promptly made a mad dash to the crowded gaming stations, pushing swag-toting heathens out of the way. It was time to get down to business and do some fragging. For demonstration purposes, all players had access to, at least, a rocket launcher, assault rifle, sniper rifle, and a shotgun without requiring a "license" as they will in the retail version. Anyone familiar with the Unreal series could tell immediately that this was definitely the Unreal engine at work and that is where Huxley's roots lie. We're talking fast-paced fighting like Quake with lots of jumping and rockets flying. Before I knew it, I was in a squad and on my way to enemy controlled territory.

On a side note, staying close to your squad and squad leader pays off. Within a certain radius, everyone is given a buff. One noticeable element of this was a speedy refresh of armor that had been damaged from plummeting out of one of the light flying scout craft. Controls on these were a little shoddy and unresponsive, but they were manageable if you were willing to try. Squad leadership, like the weapons, will also require a license with about five tiers of advancement. Other benefits to advancing in a license were unexplained on the show floor. There may be an artillery/air support benefit that would be targeted by players and carried out by AI (think PlanetSide's orbital strikes) attached to this system.

After trepanning a few more baddies with a sniper rifle, I moved on to find someone to question. Sung Kyun Kim, Lead Programmer, Jae Jun Han, Game Designer, from WebZen and Sean Carr, Public Relations from Bender/Helper Impact were on hand to offer some quick answers. When asked about the available weapons, they quickly explained that weapon and vehicles choices were broken down by the three classes. You would need a license to operate each one. There will be about ten vehicles in the game, including aircraft, such as the scout vehicle that was seen in the demo and a large flying troop carrier. Land based vehicles would include motorcycles, mechs, and heavily armored tank-like vehicles.

My next question was about how open the world was going to be. As it turns out, all of the large battle zones will be instanced. In an effort to concentrate the action, less populated instances would be locked and battles will be centralized to more populated areas. While nothing prevents action from starting up far behind the front lines, this is meant to keep the battles enticing to the projected 5000 players per world. The idea is to keep the game focused on the action and not transversing the world. Capturing one of these instances towns leads to experience, money, and resources for the victor. While not implicitly stated, I suspect these resources may be similar to capturing a technology plant or a dropship center in PlanetSide in the sense that it allows a team access to more potent weaponry.

However, it seems bringing more fire power to bear on a given fight may not have any lasting changes on the world. When asked about long-term win conditions, such as locking the enemy into a safe-haven where they have no world control, I was told there would not necessarily be anything like this in game. It may still be possible, but it's not currently in the plans. Nobody wants to be shut down complete as it impacts the fun for everyone. The victories are persistent and affect the general flow of the world.

Slated for a release on both the X-Box 360 and the PC, which will co-exist within the same game worlds, we may see an open beta test for Huxley by the end of this year. For those of us still clinging on to the join of massive first person battles in the online space, the game is shaping up to deliver in a much more fast-paced way that we have seen before for an MMO. In their spare time, the developers admitted to playing Counter-Strike: Source, as well as Unreal, and the experience with these games has left a mark on Huxley assuaging any fears about the Korean developer's ability to run and gun. More information can be found by visiting the Huxley website.