Earlier today, the original creator of RuneScape, Andrew Gower, revealed an all-new MMO that he has been working on for ten years. It’s called Brighter Shores, and at first blush, it’s reminiscent of the legendary MMO that Gower built with his brother more than twenty years ago. Gower’s studio, Fen Research, hopes to release this brand-new MMORPG in Q3 of 2024, and it’ll be free to play from day one.
Round Two
As per the Steam description for Brighter Stores, it’s:
… an all new adventure from award winning MMORPG designer Andrew Gower. It is an enchanting point-and-click style RPG with hundreds of hours of gameplay, set in a land of magic and mysteries, with a huge number of professions to try, and something new to find around every corner.
There are typical RPG features, such as a series of classes each with unique abilities, and a wide variety of skill trees and side pursuits to take advantage of, ranging from woodcutting to blacksmithing, and from alchemy to merchanting. It has been stressed that an immersive, ongoing story will exist at the heart of Brighter Shores, and post-launch, new content will be dropped on an episodic, periodic basis.
There will also be a ‘Premium Pass’ mechanic, which is typical for a game with this operating model. Users playing Brighter Shores for free will be able to explore Hopeport and Hopeforest – but the benefits of a Premium Pass go beyond explorable locations:
- ‘Mine of Mantuban’
- ‘Crenopolis’
- Unique character name (without a # suffix)
- Exclusive armour dyes
- Name changing
- Player to Player trading
That’s quite a lot to bury behind a paywall, and that’ll likely be a sticking point with prospective fans – but the pricing structure for the Premium Pass is yet to be confirmed.
Brighter Shores can be wishlisted now on Steam.
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