For the purposes of full disclosure: last week I got to go on an online tour of Riders of Icarus, an upcoming MMORPG from Nexon Entertainment. Taming the beasts of Riders of Icarus is the main draw of the game. You can capture, tame, and collect these creatures as pets. To me it seemed like a close enough version of an online Pokemon style of game in that respect. But instead of trainer battles, you take your companions into the darkest depths of a fantasy world.
My capture software didn’t capture in-game video (CAMTASIA STUDIO 8’s !@#$% fault), but it did capture the tour guide’s voice. He came to our online group of five adventurers, and was prepared right from the start to tell us all about this Riders of Icarus game.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y4e5Z1LN2E
In the first half, character creation was the first stop on our Riders of Icarus demonstration tour. We got to pick from five different classes (Guardian, Berserker, Assassin, Priest, or Wizard), and select our gender. Pretty straightforward. Then, the extensive world of body modifications opened up to us. If you wanted to twist and turn your in-game avatar into absurd angles and lengths, this game allows you to explore that type of appearance.
Our second stop was learning how to tame the land beasts of Riders of Icarus. Our tour guide took us on a trip to a nearby group of bears. It was as simple as mousing over them, clicking on the creature, and then clicking on the taming skill icon. Then we had to jump on the beast and wrestle it into our control. A small mini-game takes place where you have to time WASD button prompts to successfully charm the animal into your command. After forcing the beast into submission, it’s then under the player’s grasp. The tour guide decided to kick things up a notch, and have us try and tame an elite bear mount named “True-ton”. He followed many of the same rules that applied to mounting normal bears, but we had to directly jump on his back to initiate the process. The only way to do that was a nearby cliff. The Tour Guide let us awkwardly splat on the ground a few times before moving on.
(Somewhere in this part of the session, they went over the other uses pets have in battle. You can bind them to your equipment for stat boosts, as well as have them fight alongside you instead of serving as a direct mount)
We then took a visit to a far off dungeon (Carleon Manor), to see an early example of Riders of Icarus raids in action. It was our first taste of combat, and each of us got the chance to try some different level 20 class abilities associated with the combat aspects of our characters. It was the standard hack and slash style of gameplay, but you also had the ability to cast combo moves with your attack abilities. For example, a Wizard could perform a spell, and get a prompt to instantly follow that up with a second spell. A berserker could activate a rage mode ability and then follow that up with an ability that allowed them to chain attacks together.
While I think we were short on time by this point of the tour, our Carleon Manor raid went off without a hitch. I held my own in combat, and got the chance to perform some swordplay combos with the Guardian character. They certainly nailed the dungeon layout properly, as i was intrigued to explore more of these side corridors that we were passing by, and I fight the completionist urge I had in games like this. The boss had a couple of forms and special abilities hidden up his sleeve, but it was no match for our Riders of Icarus crew.
As far as the first half of the tour went, the game seemed to stay close to the roots of an MMORPG. The second half of the tour took us flying, and presented Riders of Icarus in a more vertical dimension. The premade character they gave us all to work with for this portion was at level 25, which makes it appear that flying mounts will be accessible from very early on within the game world.
(The second half mirrored the first half of the Riders of Icarus tour, BUT WE COULD FLY NOW)
I climbed upon my Griffin beast, and our gang of adventurers embarked on the task of taming flying creatures. The process was fairly similar to taming land beasts, using a simple button prompt to set up and initiate the process. Although the stakes were raised, as these creatures were above water, meaning a miscalculation would land you straight into the ocean’s depths below. The tour guides said it was going to be easy to miss, and didn’t expect many of us to acquire a Screamer dragon mount on our first try. But I totally nailed it. It’s a testament to how straightforward the directions of the taming process were, if a new player such as myself was able to have a fair chance at taming a flying beast after one attempt.
While it didn’t look EXACTLY like this picture, it certainly FELT like it. Personal highlight of my time with the game was right here. Loved that feeling of mastering a challenging beast and taming it all in one shot.
Then it came time for the grand finale. Our tour guide took us to one of the flying mount related raids of the game. We flew inside the top of a cave and ended up inside a big mountain arena. Our team’s first task was to take out some sort of binding stones.
We paid a big blue angry water god (Attaius) a visit. Our tour guide said the five of us stood no chance against this godly creature, and he was totally right. During our brief, albeit doomed fight against him, it was clear that there was a visible raid boss type of pattern to his attacks. He had lightning orbs, and swung his arms around. We were told to basically focus on one limb at a time, and that seemed to be the technique that we were all trying to shoot for as a group. Unfortunately we all died because our current equipped gear set was too low, and we were short half a team (it was more of a 10-man boss).
In general, I see what the Riders of Icarus team is hoping to achieve with this game. Whereas something like World of Warcraft added on mount related content from the base experience, Riders of Icarus sets out to make beasts and taming a part of the game’s foundation. It’ll be interesting to see the concept be explored more after the game officially launches.
If you’re really hyped for this game, you can pre-purchase DLC ahead of the game’s launch. But the game is free to play, you don’t have to buy anything to play Riders of Icarus.
Which is an interesting surprise I didn’t expect. At the end of the tour, I expected Riders of Icarus to have a price tag slapped on the game itself.
Riders of Icarus seems to nail the best of what online games did in the past, but taking a step forward and offering that kind of content for free instead of having customers pay for it. But what really gives the game it’s own personal identity is the beast-taming system. Even during the closed beta sessions, anyone could see the potential that Riders of Icarus beast-taming has.
A few days ago, the Riders of Icarus team announced Phase 3 of their closed beta test schedule. From June 2nd to June 7th, you can experience the game in its raw form before release. This is the first time the beta participants will be free to blog and openly post screenshots, videos, and livestreams of the game.
The game officially launches into open beta on July 6th 2016, but Founder’s Packs owners get access to the game a week ahead of time on the 29th.
As always, check the Riders of Icarus Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube channel for all the latest updates. There’s also a Steam page, if you’re interested in finding out more details.
