Overview
Darkfall Unholy Wars was an MMORPG developed and published by Aventurine S.A. and was the follow-up to Darkfall (aka Darkfall Online), which was in service from 2009 to 2012. The game was intended to overhaul many aspects which bogged down the original Darkfall, which had been developed over a long period of time (originally conceived in 1997 and entering full production in 2003). Significant changes included numerous efforts to improve accessibility (such as the GUI and new player experience) and to diversify player combat roles, some of which proved controversial.
The game servers were shut down in May 2016, with an announcement on the official forums citing conditions in Greece. Several months prior to this, the developers granted licenses to two seperate companies formed by former players to operate and develop their own versions of the original game: Darkfall: New Dawn (Ub3r Games) and Darkfall: Rise of Agon (Big Picture Games).
Darkfall Unholy Wars required a subscription fee and initial account/client purchase. Microtransactions were later added.
A free-to-play version of the game was released in South Korea and Japan in October 2013 by MGAME.
World and Rules
Like its predecessor, Darkfall Unholy Wars boasted a large and mostly seamless world. With the exception of dungeon portals, the entire world could be traversed seamlessly. There was no use of instancing or any limit imposed on the number of players in an area.
The fantasy world of Agon consisted of a large central continent (Agon) with four subcontinents: Niflheim, Yssam, Cairn and Rubaiyat. The seas surrounding these landmasses could be traversed by ships and boats (or by simply swimming).
When a player was killed, his or her items were left behind in a gravestone which could be looted by any player. Players could store items in a secure bank and generally kept many sets of armor and weapons for different situations with different potential risks, therefore item loss in Darkfall should not be directly compared with other games with different mechanics.
Clans (guilds) of players could fight to control cities and hamlets across the world which had to be built up and defended. Villages were also found across the world and incorporated player housing with resource control and local conflict hotspots.
Computer controlled monsters behaved more like simple FPS-style AI bots than traditional MMORPG monsters. Larger monsters such as dragons and the kraken could roam within a large area.
Mounts and player controlled vehicles, once spawned from figurine items, existed as independent objects in the world which could be destroyed or stolen.
There were two servers: one in Europe and one in North America.
Combat
Darkfall Unholy Wars featured real-time combat with character control and aiming in the style of a first person shooter. There was no target selection or lock-on and physics were simulated in more depth than in most large-scale online games.
The game provided a choice of perspectives including first-person, basic third person and over-the-shoulder style third-person.
Character Development
Like in the previous game, there were no permanent classes in Darkfall Unholy Wars, however a 'role' system has been introduced. Player characters were able to move between these roles. Within each role, players could select two schools from that specific role. One of the schools is set by the player as the primary and the other as the secondary, and each school contains 4 skills/spells and an ultimate, the most powerful in that school.
System Requirements
- Windows XP Service Pack 3, 32bit
- Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 + or
- AMD Phenom II X2 +
- 4GB RAM
- nVidia GeForce 8600 + or
- AMD or ATI 4850 +
- DirectX Sound Card
- 12GB Free Space
Links
Official Website
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