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Shadow Warrior's Developer Is Releasing A Multiplayer Sci-Fi RPG Next Year
The developer of the Shadow Warrior reboot franchise, Flying Wild Hog, is teaming up with publisher Jagex Partners to release a multiplayer RPG set in a sci-fi universe sometime next year. Jagex Partners is the recently launched publishing division of developer Jagex, best known for its $1 billion MMORPG franchise, Runescape.
Jagex's Runescape is recognized in the Guinness World Records as the most popular free-to-play MMORPG. Jagex has been running live service operations for 20 years, and two years ago launched Jagex Partners to publish live games and run operational services tailored to third party studios' unique needs. Flying Wild Hog will be the new division's first third-party deal, giving the development team access to Jagex’s living games publishing suite of services, which includes everything a new developer in the live service space should need to support its first game, from community support to monetization.
According to a Jagex press release, the new title will be a "multi-format living game," expected to come out in 2021. Built in Unreal Engine 4, the new game will provide a "rich, deep, connected" universe with action-RPG elements set in a sci-fi world. As a live service game, the multiplayer title will continue evolving to keep up with player needs, according to Jagex CEO Phil Mansell. Open and closed betas are planned to grant players access to the yet-untitled game before its release, but no further details about the actual game have been revealed yet.
Once it's officially ready to roll out, the game will be released on Jagex's new publishing platform, which is in development. It will hopefully benefit the knowledge and experience that Jagex has from running live game services for almost two decades when it does launch. It is still unknown what platforms the game will be launching on, but the term "multi-format" used in the press release could suggest a cross-platform launch on PC and next-gen consoles.
More details about the new game from Flying Wild Hog will be introduced in the coming months. For now, the new game definitely sounds like a step away from the Shadow Warrior series and its single-player, linear design. Hopefully, the support from Jagex Partners will be enough to support a multiplayer, non-linear, player-directed model for the upcoming game without sacrificing the fluid combat and well constructed setting Flying Wild Hog's previous games do so well. While it hasn't been announced that the game will be an MMORPG like Runescape, it is multiplayer at the very least, and speculation will have to do until more information is given.
