Promising New MMO COREPUNK Seeks To Shake Up The Genre With Fog-Of-War
It’s been a while since an MMO has really sucked me in. I’m an old-school World of Warcraft player, which is a real thing now that the game has been running for 15 years. I dabbled in FFIV, raided in Rift, and even killed a few bosses in The Old Republic before they ruined it. The last really fun MMO I played was Wildstar, and when that ended I had trouble finding anything that really scratched my MMO itch. There was a period of time where everything was trying to be WoW, but that has since come and gone. Now everyone is trying to copy Black Desert, which is a money-pit. I think the genre really needs something drastically new to shake things up. Luckily, developer Artificial Core is trying to do just that with Corepunk.
A top-down open-world RPG, Corepunk will be immediately intriguing to fans of the new Divinity: Original Sin series. The game describes itself as a fusion between Diablo and Ultima, but let’s be real here. You didn’t play Ultima. Ultima was the kind of game dads were playing when I was just discovering Counter-Strike at the tender age of 11. Ultima was nerdy even for nerds in an era where people still made movies about beating up nerds.
So, how does Corepunk set itself apart from the pack? Well, as you saw above, there’s lots to do. You can mine and craft (crazy, I know), farm both mobs and crops, and quest just like in every other MMO. Where Corepunk shows its strengths is in the details. Rather than just having set quests with the same objectives and rewards, Corepunk will feature branching quests that can have a variety of endings. You never know what you’ll stumble across along the way, be it a new camp or a roaming boss. That’s not to say the whole world is randomized. Between the game’s four unique cultures, there are miles to explore and plenty to discover along the way.
What intrigues me the most is Corepunk‘s focus on telegraphing, visuals, and spacing. For a very long time, the standard style of MMO combat has been to slam your spells in a specific rotation as fast as possible. If you are bigger than your opponent, you win. There is some slight complexity added when considering interrupts and AoE, but there’s very little you can do with spacing and cover. If you’re in range and they push the spell button, you will get hit with that spell. In Corepunk, players can use the fog-of-war to their advantage by ambushing enemies. It’s very easy to see how you could ambush a rival group, or have your rogue actually sneak around to stab their healer. Characters also move quite slow, meaning you’ll need to be aware of your positioning to avoid large telegraphed attacks. Personally, I love the telegraph style of gameplay, as it makes each encounter feel like a puzzle. I like my MMOs to demand me to pay attention and not just mindlessly farm. Unless of course I’m actually farming a farm, then it’s relaxing.
There’s more to go into, but most of it is covered in the trailer. Corepunk will feature a number of different classes, that can further be modified by talent points and artifacts. Tallents are your rewards for leveling up, and artifacts for slaying stuff. Your loadout will change what your character does, but your gear is cosmetic. So hopefully this will reduce the grind and instead focus on taking down challenging bosses and dungeons.
Personally, I play MMOs to do two things: explore and raid. I’m the kind of guy that loves diving into a game’s story, and spent dozens of hours on WoW‘s archaeology profession. Yes, I’m THAT nerd. When I’m not discovering new things, I like killing bosses. The coordination and titanic challenge of raids is a feeling that’s hard to replicate. I don’t care for battlegrounds or quest grind. I don’t really care about cosmetics beyond those that prove I did a thing extra good. With Corepunk, I’m hoping to find an MMO that can deliver that hardcore classic MMO experience with a new set of fresh mechanics. How about you? Excited for Corepunk? Let me know below!
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