Champions Online unveiled

Filed under Love Your Geek on February 20, 2008
Keywords: Champions Online, City of Heroes, Cryptic Studios, HERO games, MMORPGs, superheroes

Cryptic Studios launched the website for their latest super-hero MMO, Champions Online, today. It wasn’t that long ago that Microsoft officially announced the demise of Marvel Universe Online, a super-hero MMO that Cryptic was developing. Then comes the announcement that Cryptic purchased the Champions IP from HERO games, the creators of the HERO roleplaying system.

Looking back, it’s not hard to put together the puzzle pieces to get a clear picture of events. Cryptic sells City of Heroes to NCSoft to generate cash after getting informed of MUO’s cancellation. Cryptic uses that cash to purchase the Champions license from HERO games and continues work on the engine and art assets they began for Marvel. Champions Online is born.

I have minimal exposure to Champions/HERO. I think I browsed through a rulebook years ago at a babysitter’s house. My superhero RPG experience is limited to Marvel. Even with that system, though, the availability of powers was never limited to a particular character class. City of Heroes’ archetype-restricted power sets have been the greatest detractor to my enjoyment of the game (lack of mission type variety is a close second).

Champions Online boasts no such restrictions. There will be classes, based on comic book archetypes as opposed to gameplay roles, but all powers are available. What separates the classes are the cost of the powers. CO will use a point buy system to generate characters, and what class you chose will determine whether certain powers come at a discount or a premium. This is not a strict adaptation of the HERO system. In fact, for those who have played HERO, the folks at HERO Games have clearly stated CO is “inspired” by their rules, but Cryptic did not license the rights to use the system, just the setting IP.

Sounds good so far. Of course, the announced release is over a year away (Spring 2009). They have a few screenshots on the website. They appear to be using cell-shading for their graphics. I’m a little put off by the washed out colors and the thick black lines, but I’ll wait to see how things look closer to release when we get some gameplay video. However, just the promise of being free to select whatever powers I chose is enough to get me excited. My subscription to CoH expires in a couple weeks. I planned to renew sometime after Eternal Warlords released, but I may just hold off now and wait for Champions Online.

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