Vindictus E3 2010 Preview

Danika Potts and Oliver Campbell take a look at Nexon's new free to play ass-kicking slaughterfest MMO, Vindictus at E3 2010.

Vindictus is an exciting new free-to-play MMO from Nexon that totally swept us away. I won't lie- my first instinct when I hear "free-to-play" is to keep on walking, but Vindictus stopped us in our tracks. Neither of us would have guessed that an MMO that looked this good or played so smoothly was entirely free.  No box on the shelf to buy, no subscription, just optional microtransactions and tons of fun.

During our demo, Threedog was dropped into a mission in some overgrown ruins, bent on destroying a giant furry creature of unknown type ("some horrible monster, like a gnoll hopped up on cocaine") with a team of other players. The group instantly got down to business, Threedog whipping out dual swords and hacking it to bits. Gypsy, on the other hand, was slightly less task-oriented in her demo. The team here found themselves aboard a docked ship, surrounded by cargo and one gigantic dead fish on a line. With a single sword load-out, Gypsy mounted an epic battle with crates and some pumpkins, hacking at the giant fish and generally being a spaz. Environments are destructible and also interactive, so pumpkins were chucked onto the dock, into other players, while crates were smashed into splinters.

We're told the game's story is based on Celtic mythology, all of us young adventures being sent by Morrigan to defeat the last big bad before we're all welcomed into paradise. The style of the game suits this under-utilized setting, and environments evoke a sense of fairytale mystery and legendary danger.

Controls were incredibly easy to learn, intuitive and familar. The game looks top-shelf, on par with any full blown AAA title. The game is built on the Source engine, so any player that can run Half-Life 2 can easily run Vindictus. This is not a throwaway game. No shame here; free-to-play does NOT mean you shouldn't sit up and take notice. We'll definitely be covering more about Vindictus as they roll into beta.