Vindictus: MMO, Hack and Slash or Dungeon Crawler?

Korean MMO maker Nexon’s forthcoming English-language conversion of Mabinogi Heroes, re-titled Vindictus, is launching today in North America and Canada. What makes this launch particularly notable in our minds here at The Slowdown is Nexon’s curveball partnership with Valve Software: Instead of going for the common go-to engine in Epic’s UE3 (which is used, for instance, in DC Universe Online, Mortal Online and Huxley), the game instead runs on an adapted version of the Source engine.

Bear with me as this post is largely hearsay given players in the EU are currently locked out of the game at this juncture, but the general assumption to be made here is that the combat more closely resembles that of other Source titles like Dark Messiah of Might & Magic and Zeno Clash, in turn bridging the gap between an MMORPG and an online dungeon crawler. There are other ways, too, in which the utilization of the Source engine affects the game’s overall design and gameplay. The Source base becomes more evident in the trailer below, illustrating a wider-than-usual array of smooth close combat:

Like Source titles commonly, the game is also rather heavily instanced, with relatively few truly “open-world” locations; instance portals are supposedly littered all about the main city. The game’s Source-based server architecture also explains the key reason as to why the open beta has been so strictly regionalized so far: Unlike MMOs normally, Vindictus operates by having one player serve as host with other players connecting. An EU version of the game, for which a placeholder website already exists, was nevertheless announced during Gamescom earlier this year. This does sadly mean the game’s EU launch – or a beta available in the region – will occur much, much later. (more…)

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