Ashfall is a Fallout-inspired MMO set in 'a whole new kind of wasteland'
Ashfall was first announced at Tokyo Game Show last year, but the third-person shooter MMO flew under my radar until a few days ago when it got a new trailer (above) and the announcement of a July beta test. It looks cool!
Well, sometimes. The trailer is inconsistent: Some of the environments are magnificent—there's a sweet Star Wars-lookin' scene at 2:10—but others are decidedly homely and the animations seem choppy and stiff. Ashfall is releasing on PC and mobile devices, and perhaps some compromises have been made because of that (improving the PC graphics is the subject of a Legendary Star Studios dev blog post from last year), but the giant, bucking capybara is enough to get me to sign up for a free beta.
And even if Ashfall turns out to be a bit patchy, it might be nice to poke around in a wasteland we haven't seen before.
Ashfall is obviously inspired by Fallout—there's a vault door opening scene early in the trailer and later a dude in an unmistakable take on power armor—but publisher NetEase points out that its «Eastern-inspired wasteland» is «an aesthetic seldom seen in post-apocalyptic games,» and I think that's fair to say. The most recognizable videogame wastelands to me are set in the US and Eastern Europe: Fallout, The Division, Metro, Stalker, etc. Ashfall's architecture definitely distinguishes it from those games, at least outside of the standard dingy metal hangouts.
«From the decorations in the festive shelters of Hope Town to the hall filled with Eastern shrines, players will have the chance to experience a whole new kind of wasteland in Ashfall,» writes NetEase.
Other inspirations are apparent in the trailer, too: I see a bit of the Metro series in the early scenes, some Matrix-eque tentacled
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