Bright Star Studios is opening its cross-platform MMORPG for the first time since the Ultra Deep playtest with the closed beta launch of Ember Sword: Prologue, making it possible for players who meet certain requirements to jump into Early Access builds starting from July 12th.
This early version of what will be a free to play isometric action MMO lets the community experience the Web3 title during its development, helping developers “build the game of [their] dreams” by providing valuable feedback while supporting them financially without the need of selling the studio to investors who are likely to end up “driving decisions that prioritize returns for shareholders over things like player experience and community.”
Players will get to experience a small part of a huge fantasy world while testing out “preliminary versions” of all core economy and gameplay mechanics. More features will be added over time and the playable area of the Solarwood nation will also end up getting expanded. The first set of character and weapon skin collectables should also be available with the start of this testnet beta. When the game goes on mainnet at some point in the future, it will be possible to play to earn $EMBER tokens and NFTs, and landowners will be able to earn some of the NFTs that players trade in-game on their plot.
Story-wise, a “mysterious flux storm” has made most of Solarwoord uninhabitable, and anyone who tries to go through the magical energy dividing the world of Thanabus will be destroyed. In the lead up to release, the team will publish story-related content through which the community may find out whether this storm is natural or artificially created by some evil, but once testing begins and players get to explore the available parts of the world, the developers will look to continuously expand it by gradually unlocking more regions.
While limited in size, the map that will be available from the get-go is said to be “rich in diverse landscapes and creatures.” Not only is it set to be visually appealing, but it will also be divided into 3 types of zones determining PvP rules: Blue Zone, Yellow Zone and Red Zone.
Blue Zone is the safest zone as there’s no PvP, but if you’re looking to fight other players and uncover valuable treasures, then you will want to venture out into the other zones. The Yellow Zones are more common than the Red ones and give players a limited chance of dropping some of their inventory when dying, while full inventory seems to be dropped in the rarer Red Zones, with a chance of dropping “some gear upon death,” likely referring to the gear you have equipped. As the Red Zones are rarer, they also contain rare resources and creatures, so if you’re willing to take higher risks for higher rewards, then these are the zones for you.
Every dropped item in PvP zones have a 25% chance of getting completely destroyed instead of staying on the ground for others to loot. This mechanic is included in order to “minimize in-game inflation” while giving players a money/item sink that requires of them to keep creating more items. If you die from one or multiple players that in total have a higher level than you do, this will count as unfair PvP combat, lowering your death penalty by up to 80% depending on the gap in levels, meaning that the chances of dropping items can actually be reduced.
The first version of an in-game Premium Shop will also be available on launch, allowing players to buy various emotes as well as weapon and armor skins. Since this is the testnet version though, none of your purchases will move over to mainnet, as all player progress will be reset once the studio feels the game’s player-driven economy is ready to fully go live.
In May, the team shared an overview of the game’s economy, giving the community a better idea of how to play and earn, with the below image covering the main features you can expect to see included in early access.
Full release notes and more details on what's changed since the last update can be found in the official announcement.
To participate in the first testing sessions, you will need to have an Ember Sword account with a connected wallet while meeting at least one of the following:
Once the developers are ready to migrate to mainnet on Immutable, the game will become open for everyone with a registered account, allowing anyone to experience the blockchain-powered MMO world while playing to earn tokens and NFTs.