“Things We Love About… Defiance”, the post-apocalyptic MMORPG from Trion is next up on our list to get a little love and attention and to tell you what it is that we love about this free to play sci-fi adventure. As players step into a familiar but drastically changed near future Earth they take on the role of Ark Hunters; specialist mercenaries that seek out alien technology to help in their endless war against enemies at home and from beyond. The game is a tie in to the TV series Defiance and follows the key events in the show creating an ever evolving MMORPG available on PS3, Xbox 360 and PC, but of all the things going on in the game what is it that we love the most?

• Dynamic World Events - Players must team up to take on world challenges. One of the things we love is roaming around the world and coming across a nearby dynamic world event, typically pulling in lots of players nearby there is a real element of comradery to battle against this common enemy even with players you’ve never met before, especially in some of the greater challenges such as Arkfalls. There is a really strong team focused element like you find in games like Planetside 2, working with other players with a common goal and with no one else around it’s down to you guys to seize the day. Pulling players together in this way is also further emphasized when picking up quest missions, if someone else has recently started the same mission then you can group with them easily to help each other and potentially make a new companion, at least for your play session.


• More Shooter than MMORPG - The game has a real FPS/TPS vibe. Whilst there are obvious MMORPG aspects with the traditional questing and interaction with other players; strip that back and the game would easily play like a standard single player shooter; and that’s not a bad thing. Bucking the trend of following the same rote and formula of other MMORPGs is always a plus in our book, pushing innovation and trying out something new is definitely the way forward and it pays off with Defiance in spades. As the game is predominantly focused on PVE it’s very easy to immerse yourself in just playing an enjoyable game and then every so often seeking out other players for some assistance if you need it.


• Ever Expanding Storyline - The story is well developed and continues to progress. Both in part with the focus and direction of the game itself and the obvious primary driving force that is the TV show (to the point where we’re not sure what would happen with the game if the TV show got cancelled) the world has a pretty extensive lore attached to it. As the show goes on the game only continues to change and evolve to implement new events, albeit it the game isn’t specifically defined and strictly tied to the show, what it does do is prove an extremely rich backdrop to play the game which more than distracts players from the levelling process and makes a game that players can just enjoy being a part of.


• So. Many. Guns. - No, seriously, there’s a lot of guns. When looking over the available arsenal a player can put together it is pretty staggering, taking everything from modern, near future and alien technology means there is a very wide spectrum of ranged and melee weapons that players can get their hands on. Whilst we see the classic shotguns, assault rifles and pistols coming into play we also get some intriguing alien weapons like the Infectors that can infect their target with an infestation of alien bugs that grow and burst from their host creating their gruesome death. As well as the different categories of weapons, the number of weapons that fall into those categories, there’s also a simple but extremely customizable modding option to let players put all manner of accessories, gadgets and enhancements onto their weapons to really make them into something completely different. Whatever a player wants, the chances are that they can either find it or make it themselves!


• Shadow War - Massive open world PVP battles. A lot of the time in MMORPGs we find that the PVP element falls into two options, either switching on or off your PVP flag to be able to attack other players in the open world, or entering instanced based battles. The Shadow war offers something different, implemented in the same open world as the PVE aspect, so players out PVEing will literally see players in the Shadow War raining hell on each other in huge firefights, PVE players can jump into the battle to help out, help complete dynamic objectives, and travel across the huge map in vehicles carrying teams of players from objective to objective. PVP feels important, it feels like it has a purpose and isn’t fighting just for the sake of getting some kills; it’s what open world PVP should really be like.

So that’s what we love with Defiance, but more importantly what are some of your favourite things? What do you think could/should be added to our list that makes the game great? Let us know what you think in the comments below!

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This entry was posted on Thursday, August 6th, 2015 at 5:54 pm and is filed under Articles, MMO News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.