City of Heroes 2 trademark filed

Fans of muscled protagonists in spandex may be in luck. It looks like the massively multiplayer superhero role-playing game City of Heroes is getting a full-fledged follow-up. Korean publisher NCSoft has filed for a trademark with the US Patent and Trademark Office for "City of Heroes 2" for use with "computer game software". The original City of Heroes sold over a half-million units in the US, and its semi-sequel City of Villains sold nearly a quarter of a million copies domestically, according to the NPD Group.

City of Heroes was developed by Cryptic Studios, which recently released Star Trek Online and Champions Online. However, since Cryptic was bought by France-based Atari in 2008, development duties for City of Heroes have been handled by Paragon Studios, the Silicon Valley based shop formerly known as NCsoft North. Founded in 2007, the studio has grown from an original roster of 20 employees to more than 50 people--a number that will presumably increase if City of Heroes 2 goes into full-fledged development.

Inspired by comic books, City of Heroes lets players assume the role of a superhero and fight a variety of villains in the fictional metropolis of Paragon City. Players can customize their heroes with a variety of costumes and items and hundreds of different superpowers, skills, and abilities. They can then form alliances with other characters, create secret headquarters, and fight evil to become the top superhero squad in the city.