Leading Korean RPG developer JC Entertainment's horror-action massively multiplayer online role-playing game, Priest, is coming to North America, with its first public demonstration at E3.
Eschewing the medieval fantasy and science fiction themes seen in most MMORPGs, players will immerse themselves in a self-described 'Lovecraftian' vision of the Wild West. The eponymous character in the title is disgraced priest Ivan Isaacs, who is raising an army of warrior-mystics to do battle against the fallen archangel, Temozarela, along with his army and 12 of his brethren.
Players choose between selling their souls for demonic powers and joining the Heretics or go the way of the righteous with the Templers. Both sides are divided into eight different character classes with their own distinctive fighting techniques, upgrade trees and skills such as spiritual attacks and exorcisms.
Rather than targeting an opponent and selecting attacks via a menu, players directly control character movement and aiming, using the experience from slain enemies to develop more powerful skills and access deadlier weapons.
Players can slaughter the innocent or execute the damned in single player, player vs. player and team faction vs. faction combat across more than 48 different environments. Faction vs. faction revolves around possession of 12 sacred sites that bestow special bonuses on the faction that controls them.
Here are six screenshots of the Heretics in action:
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The English version of Priest is due in the second half of 2003. Minimum system requirements for Priest are a Pentium III 600 MHz or AMD Athlon equivalent with 128 MB RAM running a GeForce2 MX video card.
Additional information about Priest can be found at www.gamepriest.com.
