Throne-war MMO Crowfall finally gets a release date

Crowfall, a player versus player MMO you can win and lose, finally has a release date: 6th July. And you can gain immediate access to it now by signing up for the beta.

It's an MMO I've been following since it Kickstarted in 2015 (after which it raised more money via player investment and in-game property sales), and one I've played a bit of recently. It's a slightly tricky one to explain.

In general, it's an online fantasy game about fighting other players. That is the point. There's a bit of monster fighting, but only really to serve as a tutorial while you quickly level up. There's a level-cap of 30 which you can get quite close to in a few hours if you're speedy.

There are a few worlds in the game, some of which change, some don't. The glitziest are the Dregs, where the big wars between guilds happen. This is a place of siege warfare, of castles and forts and 100v100 battles. These campaigns can take days or weeks or months, but at the end, there's always a winner, and those winners take the best rewards.

Linked to these Dreg wars are the Eternal Kingdom, a separate building world where everyone can build their own kingdom. You can lay blueprints a bit like in Fortnite, and expand with new biomes and other things. This is a place that persists, hence the Eternal part of the name. But the extra fun comes from collaborating. And it's here that you can employ a kind of feudal hierarchy, specifying lords and ladies and even monarchs if you get that far.

There are other worlds, too. There are the God's Reach worlds, which are slightly more casual places for warring. Here, a permanent three-faction war between Sun, Earth and Moon rages. It's a place to recklessly romp around in, or to get used to the ins and outs of player battles.

The other world type is HungerDome, a kind of battle royale, where 12 teams of five players duke it out.

I haven't had a chance to do much in the game beyond a bit of levelling. But it's pleasant enough. It's chunky, and the character classes offer interesting possibilities. The only thing I struggled with was getting up to speed on character builds so early on. Crowfall is a game that lacks a kind of lazy exploration phase, and with a respec option not yet in (I'm assured it's coming at launch), can punish careless talent point spending. (It is quite quick to reroll, mind you.)

Nevertheless, there are many great community resources to help you with all of this should you wish to take the plunge. And if you're a fan of old PvP games like Dark age of Camelot, or Shadowbane, which is actually where the makers of this game come from, then I heartily suggest you do.

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