We’ve known about Mercia: Fractured Realms for a little while now. In fact, if you were roaming PlayStation Home’s E3 virtual space a couple of months back, chance are, you will have spotted it too.
Developed by Lockwood Publishing (the Nottingham-based studio behind the superb Sodium games) Mercia is an “online” RPG with a slight Hyborian twang, accessible for free via PlayStation Home.
In truth, we know fairly little. From the gameplay videos posted via YouTube (we assume, at some point, Lockwood has invited players to closed testing) we can deduce that Mercia features action-based combat, quests, and loot, though we’re still unsure whether the mention of online functionality could entail the inclusion of co-operative play or even PvP.
A release date has yet to be announced (the game’s official webpage is showing “Fall 2012”) though the sudden release of this trailer via Sony suggests that Mercia may be making an appearance at this year’s Gamescom conference.
Although PlayStation Home has housed a number of decent games in the past, we suggest users monitor their expectations. We were fairly stoked for VEEMEE’s online shooter, No Man’s Land, and look how that turned out.
bunimomike
I don’t think anything in video game history (for me) has ever resonated with the phrase “once bitten, twice shy” more than Home.
Good luck to them but it’ll take a herculean change of tide to tempt me back in. Either that or Home introduces pet sheep with three working offices.
Tanzil
Ah, Home. I remember when I was incredibly excited for the open beta. Alas, quite a while ago now. Haven’t even so much as looked at it. Shame really.
hazelam
i watched a video of the game, and while it doesn’t look like it can compete with a big budget stand alone rpg, i could see me playing it.
much more my sort of game than that No Mans Land anyway.