Imperator Impressions

Today at the Electronic Entertainment Expo, it was our pleasure to sit in on a behind-closed-doors demonstration of Mythic Games' Imperator, which was shown to us in an early form by Mythic CEO Mark Jacobs. The game is set in an alternate reality in which the Roman Empire never fell. Consequently, Rome dominates the Earth and ushers in centuries of peace. Eventually it expands its borders beyond the planet. However, now the Empire is once again threatened by some new and old adversaries. Among other foes, the Mayans have actually reemerged in the future to lay siege to their ancient enemies. We honestly didn't get to see any of Imperator's gameplay from the demonstration but instead were given what Jacobs referred to as a "vision demo," which was a look at the sorts of visual concepts and game design philosophies that Mythic intends to build the game around.

We got to see a couple of different areas from the game, including futuristic Rome and a starship orbiting a planet. Though the game apparently will use the same engine as Mythic's Dark Age of Camelot, we never would have known it from looking at the densely populated streets of the city, as well as from looking at the traffic...in the skies. Yep, flying cars. Futuristic Rome reminded us of the dense flying traffic in the movie The Fifth Element. Some rather impressive weather and lighting effects were demonstrated to us as well.

Interestingly, Jacobs mentioned that the game's alternate reality is predicated on just one small twist to historical events. A key, treacherous conversation that actually occurred in Roman history is overheard, the treachery is thwarted, and Rome survives her insurgents. A lot of work is being put into the game's premise and backstory, and indeed, Jacobs hopes that Imperator will make a good, solid franchise--not just a good idea for a game. He mentioned that Mythic is already exploring the possibility of having the setting featured in novels or even a theatrical film. To us, the whole thing certainly sounds intriguing.

In gameplay terms, one of the main design goals of Imperator is to steer away from the online RPG convention of requiring lots and lots of legwork. Instead of presenting gamers with a huge, sprawling expanse to trudge across, Mythic will instead focus on creating densely detailed, interesting, and useful zones--no filler. As well, players will be able to hop from one area to another using convenient means of transportation, like a high-speed metro or an interstellar shuttle service. Ain't the future grand? At any rate, all this should allow gamers to focus on the core gameplay and on doing things like engaging in combat, socializing, or crafting.

Imperator is still early, but Mythic hopes to release the game in the winter of next year and admits that the company will work on it even longer if it needs to. Since the company already has a successful product that continues to bring in revenue and since Mythic self-publishes its titles, it has the luxury of a considerable amount of time to create what Jacobs hopes will be "the next great science fiction-themed online role-playing game." We're looking forward to seeing how it shapes up.