Zipper explains MAG’s “Shadow War”
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Probably the most talked about aspect of Zipper Interactive’s Massive Action Game (or simply MAG if you prefer to be pithy) is its mammoth 256 player role-call. What hasn’t really been touched upon until now is the actual story behind the game.
Story in an FPS? Who cares! Right? Well, developers usually like to put some context on why you’re killing who you’re killing, and Zipper are no different.
Wishing to offer some back-story as to why you and 255 others will be running around a map trying to off one another, lead game designer Andy Beaudoin and fellow Zipper-ites have popped up over at the official EU PlayStation blog and have talked up the game’s clandestine “Shadow War” premise.
It’s the future, and if you thought the price of petrol/gas was bad now, it’s at an all time high in the early 30s (that’s the 2030s). War has gone commercial with nations no longer able to afford the funding of national defence forces. Enter PMCs: private military companies or “guns for hire”; mercenary armies who have no problem implementing nations’ aggressive foreign policies – for a price.
All is not as it seems however as, apart from fighting countries’ wars for them,  these various private armies are also engaged in a shadow conflict. Though speciously operating under the guise of humanitarian aid or conflict resolution, the mercenaries are also vying for lucrative military contracts. This shady practice results in each of the groups  undermining and fighting each another in an effort to underpin their own dominance in the flourishing market of “Paid Warfare” while weakening the opposition’s.
Andy assures us that we’ve never seen anything like MAG as, in an effort to revitalise the FPS genre, Zipper are thinking a couple of generations beyond what the current standard is. In fact, he promises that MAG is basically ”an FPS on steroids”.
Check out the footage below for some more in-game action and a glimpse at some of the S.V.E.R. concept art. It’s refreshing to see that each PMC has its own distinctive style and players will be able to forge out their own personal stories within the game.
Looking forward to finding out if this lives up to its potential. A possible problem could be the Q4 release. Is this not when a little game called Modern Warfare 2 is coming out.
This game might be called LAG, I just hope the make sure that doesn’t happen.
lol – well spotted, here’s hoping that it doesn’t have issues with that (although also isn’t too draconian on who can and can’t join games). Really looking forward to this though, and Zipper are a pretty good pedigree.
[...] Last week we learned about the back-story behind the Shadow War but, in yesterday’s new edition, Zipper Interactive delve head-long into the one topic that’s on everyone’s lips: 256 players!? Are you guys insane? [...]
[...] already expounded the concept of MAG’s Shadow War followed last week with the reasoning behind why such a prodigious jump to 256 online players, the [...]