Everquest, Everquest, Everquest

Sony Online Entertainment has joined the headlong rush to announce the games they will be showing off at E3 next week, with Everquest featuring prominently. Heading up the list is Star Wars Galaxies, the new massively multiplayer game set in a galaxy far, far away, but developed closer to home by some of the brains behind Everquest. With a heady mixture of "combat, exploration, social interaction, specialized missions and daring quests" being promised, it could just be the game that makes massively multiplayer games truly massive. Getting back to Everquest proper, SOE will be showing off no less than three new titles in the franchise. Planes Of Power is the latest add-on pack for the original game, once again adding new items to hoard, new quests to carry out and new zones to camp, but with a more story-led approach being promised for its autumn launch. Following that next spring is Everquest Online Adventures, a PlayStation 2 version of the game to take advantage of the console's new found online capabilities. Although it's obviously based on the original game, Online Adventures is apparently being redesigned from the ground up to be more console friendly. And then there's the big one, due out in the autumn of 2003 - Everquest II. Featuring a much improved new 3D engine, a combination of all-new areas and revamped versions of zones from the original game, and new features such as animals to ride and real-estate to buy, it's sure to prove a massive hit with the 400,000 or so Everquest players out there. Rounding out the line-up is PlanetSide, the world's first massively multiplayer first person shooter, now due out in spring 2003. That's about a year later than when it was due out this time last year, which is never a good sign. With hundreds of square kilometers of terrain to roam over spread across several continents, support for thousands of players to battle it out in a single game world, and a mixture of on-foot and in-vehicle action on the ground and in the air, it certainly sounds promising. Our only worry is that it will slip yet again, and we'll back this time next year reporting on the game being shown at E3 2003, with a spring 2004 release on the cards... Related Feature - PlanetSide screenshots

Source - press release