We got a chance to have a hands on exclusive of Devilian this year at Gamescom, the fantasy themed MMORPG from Trion Worlds that has been released in Korean and Thailand and is now making its way over to western audiences. The game will initially be localized into English, German and French, with us getting the chance to check out the pre-alpha version prior to the games closed beta (which interested players can sign up to now).

The game takes on a top down isometric viewpoint, more akin to an action RPG, but the developers are calling the game an MMORPG as the world is considerably more open and littered with thousands of other players making guilds, forming groups and chatting with each other.

For our test we got to play the early new player opening content, checking through the four available classes we went with the rather cool looking Shadow Hunter, a very versatile combatant whose primarily weapon was a whip that could strike enemies at any point on the screen, who would instantly switch to melee daggers when they got too close. Checking over the customization options, changing up the colour of our outfits and seeing what type of upper tier costumes we would be able to unlock in the future, the developers showed us one of the more unique features of the game; the Devilian Forms.

From the lore our characters are half human-devil hybrids tasked with saving the world from some angry fallen god, with this in mind we have two forms that we are able to switch between (once unlocking them at level 10). Playing as the Shadow Hunter in our standard form we had the abilities we have mentioned, with more unlocking as we levelled up, including a massive AOE shuriken that flew across the screen wiping out enemies, our abilities and skills were also determined by the skill tree that we explored. However, when switching into our Devilian form, complete with its own unique look, our skills and general playstyle changed dramatically; the Shadow Hunter then adopts more stealth when roaming around the battlefield and has the talent to teleport behind his enemies to backstab them.

One of the interesting things about combat is how it related to both PVE and PVP, in PVP players are always in their Devilian Form, and so skills and abilities that may seem fairly weak in PVE actually gain a lot more power when used fighting against other players. Combat itself is fairly standard, but used mouse click to move or WASD, or both if players want a little extra control over their character as most AOE and telegraph attacks are dependent on the position of the mouse, so players will find themselves switching between the two movement modes.

The graphics look pretty great, moody and dark they have captured the atmosphere very well from the area that we saw, using detailed graphics, well designed character models and a good use of dynamic and ambient lighting to immerse players. Combat itself is extremely brutal with blood splattering all over the place and leaving pools of guts all over the floor, as well as shinney loot! There is no auto-looting function, however players can gain access to unique pets that as well as offering a cute companion that follows you around it also has some utility including an auto-loot function or other can increase your inventory space with the saddlebags that they carry.

The game is extremely quest driven and is typically always following one story-arc or another, these often culminate in a solo-dungeon where players face off against great challenges. However, there are plenty of multiplayer dungeons to explore as well with groups of players, one of the other unique elements of the game being that classes don’t have traditional roles assigned to them such as a healer, tank or DPS. Instead each class can fulfil these roles in different ways depending upon the way they have advanced down the different skill trees; when in a group then depending on what classes and abilities the other players have, or depending on the type of enemy they will face, players can find themselves in different roles each time.

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