First look: Charr

Canadian game developer Fate Studios is working on an online role-playing game called Charr: The Grimm Fate. The game will be set in a postapocalyptic fantasy world featuring treacherous hazards like earthquakes, meteor impacts, and acid rain. Players will create a character from one of 12 playable races: the commoner, badland-elf, shadow-elf, orc, troll, ogre, dwarf, dark faerie, brood giant, sleeth, the risen, and the cursed. A wide variety of weapons and armor will be featured in the game, including high-level equipment such as the plasma blade, needler pistol, fusion autocannon, temporal destabilizer, stealth suit, and mobile exoskeletal combat chassis. In addition, the game will feature hundreds of combat and spell combinations.

According to the developer, the game will be designed to let players play alone or with a group as they choose, rather than penalizing solo players. The game will also feature balanced character classes to give high-level warriors the same effectiveness as high-level spellcasters.

Players will all share the common goal of ridding the world of the grimm, a terrible interdimensional species that spreads disease and mutation. When they begin the game, players will have a non-player character companion to help them in battle. As characters increase in level, they will gain more powerful companions. Players can also build and use vehicles and strongholds in the game.

For more information, visit the official Charr Web site. Charr: The Grimm Fate is scheduled for release by Waggaworld Entertainment International in early 2003.